Fairy Tail: Desolate Vitality
by Rai-Tan
Summary: Sometimes, those small mistakes would be seen as accidents. An accusation could be seen as a mislead - but nobody knows the truth. After all, sometimes, the truth is too unbelievable to be true. Two-Faced!Natsu. OP!Natsu. Rating, genre and image cover may change depending on language and story content.
1. Chapter 1: Spiteful Treachery

**...**

**Hello... again. ^^ I wanted to never write again on this site - but there were perks and I had this sudden urge to write. And yes, another Natsu-central story... I, for some reason, like to make him suffer and then blame everything on Fairy Tail.**

**I'm not the best at romance (my previous stories prove it, go ahead and laugh your heads off), so don't hope for any... affairs. I don't think my writing style has changed, so it could be horrible. I have just added swear words for the sake of it - it would sound just "not right" if they weren't there (I think most of them would come from Mira). If I go on hiatus, blame my laziness - or my homework.**

**I would like to say that you can complain as much about any mistakes (well... not too offensively, I take complaints seriously - so I might cry). So just point out a few mistakes, then give a few tips on how to fix them. You can point out that I don't write a lot on a chapter - I'll try to write at least 5000 words on one chapter, and maybe improve my vocabulary when you guys say so - after all, my English isn't top-notch (like some popular authors around here). I don't write fighting scenes a lot, so it may looked rushed, and skipping some crucial parts. I apologize for those mistakes. I'll try to improve.**

**I'll also add the word count (of the story content, not including the Author Notes). ^^  
><strong>

STORY WORD COUNT:_ 3,686 (disappointing, I didn't pass the 5,000 word count)_

**I know this is annoying but...  
><strong>**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT own Fairy Tail**

**Enjoy! ^w^**

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><p><strong>Fairy Tail: Desolate Vitality<strong>

**Chapter 1**

**Spiteful Treachery**

* * *

><p><strong>Summary:<strong>

Sometimes, those small mistakes would be seen as accidents. An accusation could be seen as a mislead - but nobody knows the truth. After all, sometimes, the truth is too unbelievable to be true.  
>Two-Faced!Natsu. OP!Natsu.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Fairy Tail - Year X782<strong>

He took the chance to take a swing. It had turned out as he had expected, such half-assed effort could surely not land. Remarkably, that miracle of a revenge was materialized and landed just in the perfect spot of brutal murder. Erza Scarlet's favourite strawberry cake. The moment his hand was a hair length's away, what a daunting aura seemed to arise.

His greatest goal was to become the strongest. Apparently, this goal is lacking thought. A strike straight in the face, a couple split-second upper-cuts in the ribs, and probably a knee in the nuts was the result after the red-head's state of angst. Red murderous eyes stared back at him. And he just stared helplessly at the eyes, smiling sheepishly.

"There was an ant on your cake...?"

Despicable. Another few blows to his ribs.

"Learn to lie better, Natsu." Another blow to the chin. Erza Scarlet walked out with a disapproving look, taking a job request before leaving. The fighting resumed, after the long pause of Erza beating the little conceited dicks. Undoubtedly, Gray Fulbuster walked in with a black-eye. No clothes on of course. Skin shown in broad daylight. He spots his rival groaning on the floor.

"Heh, got a lesson. Didn't ya, flame-breath?" Gray grins victoriously at the beaten-up guild member. Natsu, he, sent a flaming roar at Gray.

"Shut up you bastard. This could heal in no time."

Despite his remark, he looked quite the opposite. A couple bruises formed around his chest as well as a close-swelling underneath his chin. Gray laughed, and sent an 'Ice Lance' at Natsu. The low-effort made in the lance caused the lance itself to attack it's own creator. The guild howled in an uproar. Gray, attacked by his own magic. The fact that the lance pounced onto it's owner wasn't by pure chance, but more because Gray placed the palm of his hand facing himself, without the bother of facing it at his rival.

Natsu, grinned and threw a fireball himself at Gray. The boy dodged by the time the fire was a length's way from harm; the fire landed in the bar, where in which Mirajane Strauss was sitting quietly on the stool. The bar caught on fire, the flame licking the end of Mirajane's hair - the burn created her hair a black end. Her eyes dawning on Gray and Natsu, cursing them for ruining her beauty and ruining her long-forgotten food. Slowly sizzling at the end, she pounced in the direction of the two boys with her hand in the shape of a demonic claw.

"OH YOU LITTLE FUCKING DICKHEADS!"

Her face morphed into one with Satan's face. Black magic pouring out of her, scratch that, demon spirits free themselves ready to cause havoc in plain sight. Therefore, the guild erupted into chaos, the duel becoming a whole war between individuals. Elfman Strauss screaming "MAN" in every direction to show off his pride. Mirajane Strauss hissing at every person in sight, and slowly killing their inner spirits for the day. Lisanna Strauss, the youngest sibling of the Strauss family sat quietly in the bar that cooled off from the fire, giggling at everyone's antics of battling one another. Natsu Dragneel joined her as well, the unnatural behaviour of the young dragon slayer made the young Strauss look.

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><p>The next morning, the Strauss family set out to do an S-Class mission together. Through multiple and continuous complaints and begging, Natsu Dragneel joined the mission as well. Despite appearances, he sounded himself as if he would die to go on the quest.<p>

"I bet you'll die squinty eyes! Even I can take on a mission like that!" Gray Fulbuster mocked, obviously showing that he's jealous of not going on the S-Class mission. Surprisingly, he didn't argue back - he sat silently while in his own world of excitement about going to the mission. Seeing this, Gray just dropped his useless argument. Lisanna and Mirajane came out of the restrooms, walking straight at Natsu; Elfman followed them, trekking on behind them.

"If you dare take all the reward. I'll slaughter you, or maybe I can even call on Scarlet," the dragon slayer's gaze dropped from excite to fear. Mirajane's eye burst into life from the dull plain eyes she used to stare coldly at everyone. Even Scarlet herself would dare not to create life in the empty yet easy-to-fill-with-excitement-with eyes, who knows what plans she has the devil herself.

"Just kidding! Why would I even call on that armour-loving bitch!?"

Mirajane's eyes turned mad. That swirl of 'slaughter' in her eyes, showing what she'll do as the... torturer. That laugh she made, it was Satan himself. Natsu and Mirajane's younger siblings inched back.

"M-Mira-nee... lets go now..." Lisanna tugged on her eldest sister's tank top. Lisanna just did a favour to everyone, and that was to calm down the demon's madness. The eldest of the Strauss house's eyes softened at the youngest, and therefore ruffled her hair.

"Try not to fall behind. You could die." She stares at the dragon slayer previously in fear of being possibly being eaten alive. He replied in a cohesive response of melancholy and arrogance. Small pulses would appear on Mirajane's forehead, "Don't you get cocky you shit!" She finally snapped - and kicked him out of the guild halls, the hurtful 'oof' as her heel stabbed the insides of his guts.

"Mira-nee... that was a bit too harsh..." Lisanna's forehead was then poked by her elder-sister's nail.

"That's because you never see harsh." A dark cloud formed in Mirajane's eyes, she would never let Lisanna get her innocence away from such horrors. Elfman just had to come in at the... 'right' time, ruining the moment.

"You're not a man Lisanna! A man must face all!"

Mirajane fumed and struck him. Lisanna tilted her head.

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><p>Walking into the village, the group was approached by a mad-looking old man. Through his deemed madness, he stretched out his bone-thin arms and caught the shoulders of Lisanna - who shrieked as his face was only a hair-lengths way. She nearly fainted of the foul breath he emitted from his mouth, you can also see grime sticking to his stick - which proves he hasn't been brushing teeth in a while. His eyes stared right into hers full of clear madness,<p>

"You! YOU CAME TO-"

"FUCK! Get your dirty hands off my SISTER!" He was struck right on the face, and therefore being blown back by the amount of force taken - Lisanna was pulled back by her elder sister before being blown away like the old man. Natsu and Elfman stood behind, not even understanding why they stand not caring about the old man being hurt. The man picked himself up and grumbled, shooting a glare right at the group of children - afterall, this mission was assigned by him so he could lure magicians to be eaten by the monster. His face inwardly grinning at himself - four people... children was enough.

"I'm sorry for my lack of manners, I was the one who assigned wizards to this mission - well... you are here because of that, yes?" The man rubbed the rim of his shorts, smearing off any dirt sticking onto his clothing. He was met with an apologetic reply from the one he grabbed onto.

"I'm sorry mister, my sister is sometimes too overprotective." Mirajane gives Lisanna a looked of betrayal. The man just nodded.

"Well, I hope you're all already ready, the monster should be out about-" A roar silenced the old man, his features slightly turning up. _Well, too bad your short life is going to be eaten by that monster. What I wonder is why I always get interrupted. Quite rude little gits._

"YOSH! Lets go Elfman, Mira and Lisanna!"

Natsu and the siblings dash off to the direction of the monster, no lick of fear present on their faces. The man watches them run off into the distance - probably they can obliterate that monster after all? He did not even speak of the possible weaknesses of the monster. He just knew either situation would drive the monster away - first by being defeated by the children, or the children being eaten.

Natsu swung his flame-covered hand at the monster - in which he was blown back by the monster's roar. Coming down, crashing into the ground.

"Natsu! Are you al right?!" Lisanna ran to her friend's side, worry etched on her face. Her hand pulled him up,

"Don't worry Lisanna, we'll beat this guy in no ti-"

_**"#RRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOARRRRRRRRRRRRRRR#"**_

The entire forest shook in the desperate situation. The young dragon slayer and the siblings froze, something was wrong with the monster - it started going hysterical. It lashed it claws at everything in its way, swung its tail side to side causing the debris to fly everywhere, and charged head on at the Fairies. Natsu took this as an approval of challenging the monster. Mirajane used _**SATAN SOUL**_, and took the form of her normal form. Flying up into the sky to channel her magic into her hands.

Letting it all go, the laser just barely scathed the monster. She was knocked back to the ground by the monster's monkey-like arms. Lisanna rushed to her sister to aid her injuries, before sending the monster a bite of her magic - which of course, did no effect as this made the monster more enraged. Natsu saw an opening from the monster, and ran. His body covered in flames. Being a tad bit late, Elfman charged first - and attempted to take-over the monster; thinking about the situation their stuck in now. Lisanna and Mirajane caught the signs.

"NO! Don't Elfni-chan! You're not powerful enough!" Lisanna's yell was inaudible to Elfman's ears, as he channelled as much magic to take-over. As attempted, Elfman took over the beast. A flash of hope appeared in everyone's eyes - but it soon shattered as the take-over was unsuccessful, and the beast took control instead in Elfman's body. Mirajane, because of her build, was injured heavily by the blow previously. The only people able to fight were Natsu and Lisanna, and both were having no success in beating the beast.

The beast became bored, and focussed it's eyes on the one that was able to damage him - Mirajane. Lisanna caught the eyes staring at her elderly sister, and stood in front protectively.

"You have to pass through me to get to Mira-nee!" Mirajane groaned, the battle was easy to see who was going to win - the beast. They were beaten so easily that they were only to attack the beast who received only minor injuries. She stares at the youngest Strauss standing in front of the beast, hands in the air protecting her.

"No... don't Lisanna..." "STOOOOPPP LISANNAAAAA!"

The Elfman beast grunted in dismay, and swung its arm at the petite girl. Lisanna was sent flying into the depths of the forest before Natsu could even block the attack. Natsu and Mira watched Lisanna fly away, just a rag doll being thrown away.

"MIRA! GO AFTER LISANNA! DON'T JUST LIE DOWN THERE!" Natsu yelled, and punched back the beast's fist that nearly collided onto Mira's form. Mirajane picked herself up, and agreed with him with no reply as she ran towards the direction of her little sister in pain. "Now... how to deal with you..."

Mirajane ran. Barely dodging the trees being brought down by the force of the enormous monster. After running into a safe distance from the opponent, she spots her little sister in the distance. Blood pooled around the small form.

"L-Lisanna... I'm here, it's going to be al right..." Embracing the blooded form of Lisanna, Lisanna just had enough strength to hug her back.

"Mira-nee... I... can hold on..." Both girls had tears running gently down their cheeks, if they had never accepted this job - none of this would have happened. Lisanna, being in the weak state she is in - coughed violently, before blood pooled in her mouth. The thick red liquid ran down her lips, and Mirajane could not help but cry more; telling Lisanna that she's al right consecutively. The two sisters heard a faint explosion in the distance. "Mira-nee... is Natsu... al right?"

"He... he's fighting Elfman... come on Lisanna... stand up... we need to get to the infirmary..." The older sister just lightly tugged on Lisanna's purple dress, Lisanna just lay on the ground. Not having enough strength to go back up. Lisanna was losing blood. Fast.

* * *

><p><strong><em>"FIRE DRAGON'S BRILLIANT FLAME!"<em> **

His roar hitting the beast square in the face, the beast thrust a tail in the direction of Natsu. Concentrating his fire power onto his own feet, Natsu flew in the air with fire as a platform - and started dealing some fatal attacks. Just when Natsu looked at his own platform, which was moving of course - his stomach slightly churned and his face turned an odd shade of green. The beast, which saw the opening - went on an all-out charge. Natsu, still in a daze, hasn't noticed this and flew as soon as the attack landed - in the direction in which Mirajane ran after Lisanna. Oddly enough, everyone kept being blown into the same beast chased after the pinkette after sending him into the depths of the forest.

"Oof!" "AGH!" "OH GOD!" "WHY?!"

Tumbling from tree to tree, he landed rather softly onto the cold ground - much to Natsu's relief. There is no way he wanted to face-plant into the concrete, no way. Picking himself up, he spotted the shadows of the trees surrounding him, as well as a faint smell of Mirajane and Lisanna. Running his hands over his pants, he dusted off his pants as well as twirl his finger in the holes now visible on his pants.

"I wonder if Lisanna is al right..." Running rather limply in their direction with a limp leg, he should wish for the beast to not detect his position - as its humongous figure is causing a rampage. Natsu smelt Lisanna's scent getting closer as he ran, rather, jogged, on his right side. A smell so strong filled his nose, and it was familiar. He could hear growling so close, he wasn't alone, yes.

_**"FIRE DRAGON'S ROAR!"**_

His quick reflexes twisted back his head to face what was behind him, and sent a flaming roar in its direction - hoping it'll temporarily stop it. Continuing on running, a light came in view, not an ordinary light - it was blinding his eyes. The same growl and smell, Natsu grind his teeth - his roar didn't stop the beast at all. Was he weak, after all?

_**"FIRE DRAGON'S CLAW!" "FIRE DRAGON'S IRON FIST!"**_

It was no use. No effect. The monster isn't getting fazed at all - and seemed to gain boredom by the minute. Natsu realised the monster and himself were so close to Lisanna and Mirajane's area - and its power was growing. Spotting a rather large lake nearby, Natsu set himself on fire and jumped from tree to tree - while getting the beast's attention through spitting small fire bullets at it. A simple, yet annoying attack made the beast's blood boil - and therefore made itself run at the fired up child heading towards the water.

Jumping into the water, the beast jumped in as well, a vein popped out as the pink-haired child was nowhere to be found. That was when a sudden rush of heat spread around its feet. The lake water transformed into a large gust of steam, it was lukewarm, and intoxicating enough for the beast to collapse from total heat exposure. The steam turned back into the water, and the lake returned to its normal state.

Natsu jumped to Elfman, who has transformed back to the normal after the fall. Natsu grabbed Elfman's arm, slung it over his shoulder, and dragged him to the spot where Lisanna and Mirajane rested at. Natsu noticed the small burns on Elfman, as well as that he is extremely heavy. Heavier than a normal person should be. Natsu just noted to tell Lisanna to not make too much food. Before he knew it, Natsu arrived in the nick of time. Lisanna was barely able to stay awake.

"Lisanna! Mira!"

Mirajane turned her head to see an unconscious Elfman being held by Natsu who was dripping wet. Natsu rushed to their sides, and put a hand on Lisanna. He let Elfman rest at the side of a tree as he spotted the pool of blood.

"Quick! Lisanna is going to-!"

Natsu felt a sudden sharp edge slip into his fingers. Blinking, everything was fine - oh how wrong he was though.

Then that scream pierced through the silence.

The pink-haired boy felt a splash of blood jump onto him. It wasn't his blood, he knew that. Natsu raised his head, and noticed an arrow between his fingers - it stuck into Lisanna's side through his fingers. Mirajane jumped as she spotted the arrow in Natsu's hand.

"Y-you... WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING TO LISANNA?!"

Mirajane jumped at Natsu, and they fell back. Natsu's hand pulled out the arrow as he was pushed down - and Lisanna coiled in pain as she screamed again. Natsu stared at the bloodied arrow. It was the first time he saw blood - other than his own.

"ANSWER ME! WHY DID YOU FUCKING STAB LISANNA?!"

"I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! IT SLIPPED INTO MY HANDS!"

An unbelieving washed over Mira's face, and Natsu felt his blood run cold. Mirajane's lips turned into a thin line, and her eyes were cold to the bone - they matched her pearly white skin for some reason. The pupils in her eyes dulled its colour.

"Bullshit... How can someone shoot an arrow to be able to 'slip' into your hands...? Tell me the truth, why did you stab her?"

Mirajane's bangs shadowed the top half of her face as she questioned the pink-haired child. Natsu shrinks, is she going to believe him? She stared down at him, her eyes not the same indifferent stare. They were cold as ice, they seemed to have already broken.

"I DIDN'T DO IT! WHY WOULD I WANT TO STAB HER?!"

"THAT'S WHAT I'M ASKING!"

The two stopped as they spotted Lisanna fading away, particles of her slowly eating her away into the atmosphere. Mirajane ran to her side and tried to pull her together, to not have Lisanna separate - but the effort was useless as Lisanna completely disappeared.

Mirajane's eyes broke into tears, and punched the pink-haired boy sitting in complete shock. Natsu felt his eyes droop - and his vision cleared of its surroundings. It was all black. He wished everything was al right, a dream. The next day - he wanted to see everyone's faces normal and well, knowing he didn't stab Lisanna. Natsu had the gut feeling that he was completely wrong. He let his mind rest.

_After all, the truth is sometimes too unbelievable to be true. _

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><p>Natsu awoke. He noticed the white walls and whit bed sheets over his small body. He was in the guild's infirmary. Natsu walked out. His grin plastered on his face.<p>

"EVERYONE! I'M UP AND RINGING!"

Most eyes turned to him, either teary-eyed, shocked or angered. All was silent, and the silence could be cut with a single knife. The pink-haired boy spotted Laxus Dreyar not giving a bother to look, as always. Natsu, being the blockhead he was, broke the tensing silence with a happy grin that slightly faltered at the stares.

"Why's everyone so quiet? Where's Ice Princess?! I want to fight him!"

"How about fight yourself and use your damn brain for once."

Natsu stopped to stare at the cold tone his rival, Gray spoke in. It was as if they were never friends in the first place, not that Natsu would admit that anyway. Natsu took Gray's comment as an insult for a fight, and roared - much to everyone's annoyance.

"At least I'm using my brain, you stripper!"

"How can you act normal after murdering Lisanna? It's like you never did it."

Gray's words struck like a knife. It was true then. Mirajane didn't give a damn about his answer and spread her own answer of Lisanna's death. Natsu clenched his fists, his knuckles turned pale from the strain. Happy looked at Natsu, his expression saddened.

"I DIDN'T KILL HER! SOMEONE SHOT HER! NOT ME!"

The majority glared harder, and started shouting.

"THEN WHY WAS THE ARROW IN YOUR HAND?!"

"YEAH! YOU WERE HOLDING IT TOO!"

"YOU PULLED IT OUT AS WELL!"

"LISANNA MUST'VE BEEN IN A LOT OF PAIN YOU ASS!"

They started throwing several items; chairs, tables, plates, stationary, books, wine bottles, beer mugs. If it weren't for Natsu's ability to burn, he would've been covered from all the items - dying or badly injured from the sharp objects.

"SILENCE YOU IDIOTS!"

The people throwing stopped immediately at their master's angered tone. Natsu took this as a chance to exit the guild. Natsu, sporting an indifferent look, saw the master staring at him. Natsu ran back to his house, Happy staying back at the guild - crying.

_'click'_

Locking the door of his house, Natsu slowly walked to the green hammock, and sat down. His onyx eyes staring down at the cracked wood of his house, he wondered why. Why his life turned out this way. Natsu suddenly had an idea pop into his head - to keep away these thoughts, Natsu was going to clean the house, in which he hasn't done the day he first slept in his house. Natsu pondered for a moment before starting.

_Maybe being alone is better... nobody can hurt..._

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><p><strong>There you go! ^^<br>Chapter 1 (prologue) done!**

**The next chapter is straight to the start of the main story of Fairy Tail! Lucy Heartfillia is coming (to be honest, I don't really like lucy that much)! She'll become just like everyone else (so yes, a lot of bad mouthing). ****I've been listening to 'Fairy Tail ending 17: Kimi no Mirai FULL VERSION', so I suddenly sped up the story at the end (you won't see detail, I really need to get rid of this habit).**

**Well, bye! Please review for my motivation! I'll make sure to read it!**

** ~ Rai-tan [nearly inserted my real name]**


	2. Chapter 2: Chained Trust

**Hello again! Rai-tan here!**

**Thank you for reviewing the previous chapter; treeofsakuras, darkhuntressxir, ValinNight, pocoorange, Guest[Guest]!  
>I'm sorry, but I cannot answer your questions! Wait... are they rhetorical questions? Well... never mind.<strong>

**A little note, I'll definitely have this chapter at least 5,000 words of story content! As for pairings, I have said that my writing skill in romance is the worst - so probably only little affections when someone does something really amazing/heroic (maybe this only applies to Natsu).**

**Now... as my story is targeted around Natsu; I'm not really sure on his character building (it could be shown through this chapter) as situations may become more intense than in the main story of Fairy Tail. So extra arcs would be added to suit the change from characters (if I were to not add those different arcs), I wouldn't guarantee the filler arcs from the anime (as I have seen, not many people liked those arcs in the first place) so they would or could be replaced with my arcs. And because I'm really weird enough, I've made the Macao arc go after the Eisenwald arc. **

**I cannot guarantee the additions of OCs, they would most likely appear in my extra arcs, OVAs and 'my' specials. I would most likely include OVAs, but possibly not all of them - this is because of the sudden 'change' of character placement (like that OVA of Fairy Academy). I will definitely not include the manga specials (such as 'Fairy Woman', 'Happy's Job', 'Juvia's Anniversary', etc...). As for 'my' specials, they would include the special dates in real life (such as Christmas, Halloween (?), Valentines Day, St. Patrick Day (?), etc...), I don't know many other special dates - because I don't live (doesn't mean I'm not born from it) in America, Europe or Asia. Yes, I live in Australia and it's so damn hot around Christmas.**

**From what you can see in my summary, Natsu is 'two-faced', I have decided on his 'evil' side that he hides but I haven't decided on his façade he wears most of the time. So that is why I'm concerned on his character building - oh well! I can't think all month about that, can I?  
>I forgot to mention about when I'll update in the previous chapter. The main chapters (as in that those apply to the story) will be updated weekly; as for the specials and OVAs, they'll go in whenever I want to – so you could have two chapters in a week. ^^<strong>

**As stated in the previous chapter, this chapter will skip all the way to the main story. So Lucy is bound to show up. No promises if she acts really rude or nice.**

**Story Content: _5,005 words_**

**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN FAIRY TAIL**

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><p><strong>Fairy Tail: Desolate Vitality<strong>

**Chapter 2**

**Chained Trust  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Summary:<strong>

Sometimes, those small mistakes would be seen as accidents. An accusation could be seen as a mislead - but nobody knows the truth. After all, sometimes, the truth is too unbelievable to be true.  
>Two-Faced!Natsu. OP!Natsu.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Fairy Tail - Year X784<strong>

'crack' 'su'

"Ultear, stop playing around during a meeting!"

A cat-like elderly man, Michello, sat at the council meeting and notices Ultear Milkovich playing with her magic **'Time Arc'**. She looked back at him scornfully, a playful look on her face as she stared back at him. Then she walked over from her seat to behind Seigran – another young council member. Placing her hands on his shoulder, she looked at Seigran – in the corner of her eye, Michello's ears turned red.

"But I'm bored... Aren't you too Seigrain-sama?"

Ultear's previously cracked orb plopped on top of her head, its glimmering shine grew a sparkle in the room. Her face was looking at the other members of the magic council, smiling innocently. Said Seigrain raised his arm, a grin spreading over his face.

"Yeah, I'm bored too. I want someone to cause some trouble soon."

Noticing this statement, Org became enraged at the carelessness of trouble that Seigrain spoke of. Ultear started walking back to her seat as the conversation became directed at Seigran now, she watched Gran Doma silently listening and seemed to be waiting for an opportunity before things became underhanded.

"Watch what you're saying! I don't even know why these brats are members!"

Seigrain looked back at Org smugly. His face showing a slight playful smile, his eyebrows rose at the enraged council member in front of him. Ultear seemed to do Seigran's action as well – emphasising the elderly person's misfortune and anger.

"'Cause our magic power is high, old fart."

Org seethed at Seigrain's insult, about to cast a spell at the young council member. The chairman of the Magic Council hit the base of his staff to the ground - the sound echoing throughout the room. This caught the members' attention.

"Silence! We know there are many problems already."

Gran Doma, chairman of the Magic Council, decided to speak. His face turned slightly dark as he proceeded to his next statement.

"Especially, we need to deal with... the idiots of wizard guild Fairy Tail."

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><p>"WHAT! MY SEX APPEAL IS ONLY WORTH 1000 JEWELS?!"<p>

A young blonde girl exclaimed, she jumped from the store step to kick a trash bin. Several people looked over at her direction at her loudness and unladylike behaviour.

"Tch... I'll give him a lesson..."

The young blonde girl, coming out of a magic store, was a young celestial spirit wizard. Her name is Lucy Heartfilia, currently aged 17 years of age; she was just recently introduced to the arts of magic. She wore a blue-outlined vest, a similar coloured mini-skirt that dangled a brown belt and keys to the side. A small bunch of her hair tied with a blue ribbon, her expression told otherwise of her personality.

"Kyaaa~!"

"Salamander-sama~!"

Lucy Heartfilia, being the curious girl she is, headed towards the ever-growing crowd. Many girls were running into the crowd's direction and this only piqued Lucy's curiosity even more. She went into deep thoughts as she pondered on the name _'Salamander'_.

"Salamander... OH! It's that famous wizard that is able to cast fire magic that can't be bought in stores! He's in town?!"

Lucy skipped over to the crowd. Her eyes landed on the centre of attention - that's when her heart started to beat faster than normal. _'W-why is my heart... so fast...!'_ The centre of attention was a young man with a navy blue-purple coloured hair, above his right eye was a tattoo that reminded Lucy of something. Though her mind went instant-blank as his gaze turned on her, her pondering thoughts disappeared as she was gazed at. She didn't get to spot the ever-so-evil aura pouring into the crowd.

Lucy felt her legs jumping at the young man, when she suddenly stopped as she saw another young man. This person was slightly taller than Lucy, his features hidden behind a cloak that was coloured midnight-black which sported a shining blue flame across the back. Lucy deemed to think that the man was definitely ugly, hiding himself behind a cloak – who else would do that anyway, Lucy thought. The navy-blue haired man peered at the cloaked person.

"Oh? Another fan of mi-"

"Imposter."

"W-what?"

The cloaked person raised a finger at the attention-seeking blue-haired man.

"You are _Bora of the Prominence_ - recently being banned from Titan Nose guild for the illegal use of **'Charm Magic'** and female slave trading system."

The cloaked person's voice was monotone, so eerily stable that he seemed more like a ghost. Lucy could see the dangerous air around this person. Lucy pondered about his words, and every woman that crowded this Bora pulled a disgusted face, and some left. Before she knew it, the cloaked person threw a fireball at the so-claimed _Bora of the Prominence_.

"G-geh... Damn you... **_'Red Shower'_**!"

Lucy could only gape as a rain of purple flames befalls upon the cloaked man. The man, took off his cloak through a pull from his arm, and therefore used it as a shield as he just threw it into the air. The cloak dropped to the ground after the flamed depleted, and the man seemed to not bother to grab his cloak. Lucy could see the full appearance of the man.

His striking appearance was applied with some pointy messy deep red locks that stuck in all directions, a tanned body, and some pointy deep beady onyx eyes that somehow glistened in its midnight colour. His attire was simple; a plain white tank top under a black hoodie though the hood lay on his back, similar coloured tight jeans held to his waist with a slightly loose black belt. His feet adorned the recently-made black high top converse shoes that was completely black except the white lining around the base of the shoes. His hands were covered in a pair of black leather fingerless gloves that had silver pellets on the place of the knuckles; an outline of a white Chinese dragon was seen at the centre of the back of the gloves - also being surrounded with silver pellets.

The young celestial spirit caster felt her cheeks turn red, but let it pass as the situation unfolded in front of her eyes. Lucy pondered about how she had seen this man before in magazines.

**_"Fire Dragon's... Roar...!"_**

A large cylindrical beam of red hot fire escaped the young man's mouth, and it scathed the female slave trader as his entire attire and body was covered in burns. Bora could only whimper, the situation was handed to his opponent - and Bora himself had no power to take back the situation into his hands. That was when most of the crowd spotted a glimmer of light on the previously-cloaked saviour; it was the Wizard Saint emblem. The blonde caster watched a crowd of soldiers walk into the fight's direction, she recognized the captain as Lahar.

"What has happened here...? Oh! Dragneel! A coincidence to see you here."

"Lahar."

The conversation was cut short by the quick acknowledgement of the now-deemed 'Natsu'. Lucy noted to find the name in the magazines she just recently bought from the ripped-off magic store. 'Natsu' picked up his cloak, and wore the dirtied cloth over his shoulders. Turning his attention to the unconscious criminal, the young Wizard Saint picked him up by the collar of his cloak - and held him up for the war captain to see.

"This man is Bora the Prominence - a recent female slave trader."

Lahar took this as notice, and took the criminal. Lucy hypothesized they were taking him to jail; after all, he deserved to be in one anyway. After the army left, Lucy found herself in the young Wizard Saint's way. He looked at her, his midnight-black eyes boring into her chocolate brown ones. His face stayed its stoic look.

"U-um... thank you for saving me!"

The wizard looked at her in further notice. Silence took over the anxious and discomforting feel. The red-haired man just faintly nodded, then walked off. Lucy felt her heart beat double the pressure. Looking up into the horizon, Lucy saw the sun lowering to the ground - she was a day away from joining Fairy Tail - the strongest in Fiore!

* * *

><p>The next day at late noon, Lucy headed out of her stay at the hotel nearby in Port Hargeon. Her Sorcerer Magazine in hand, the cover having a professional shot of Mirajane Strauss - in capital, a subheading of the main topic<em>, 'TOP FEMALE MODEL OF FAIRY TAIL POSSIBLY THE BEST OF FIORE?'<em>. Lucy, sitting down at a nearby bench near the port - she lay down on the surface of the seat, and started reading.

The first few pages showed its contents that had pictures beside them. Lucy read on, read past passages about Mirajane - looking at several photos of her. She also read about the destruction Fairy Tail made - which of course made Lucy exclaim they were just too much. Skimming through several pages, the blonde wizard spotted a page in large bold words - _'THE PERFECT BOYFRIEND?'_ Piquing her interest, she read the pages.

_Young women would wish for the 'perfect' boyfriend, but in what way would make men in a way, perfect? From the previous poll, many women have picked a particular young man from the all-well-known destructive guild - NATSU DRAGNEEL! We, editors of the Sorcerer Magazine have simply asked why to a minimum of three lucky women from the poll!_

_"He's good-looking, many men in that guild are like him - but Dragneel isn't as immature and destructive as the rest."  
>We have agreed this statement from a young woman; Julie. Many of you readers have heard of the destructive nature from most men in magician guild, Fairy Tail? Well, we have researched about this particular man - and it has been recorded in his missions that though he may have damaged some parts of the areas he fought in, he would give some of his prize money for property damage! Now this is unlike other wizards in this guild.<em>

_"Mysterious and well-mannered, that air around him just grabs my interest."  
>Now who wouldn't agree with Maria? We, the editors of the Sorcerer Manga have tried to get Dragneel to reply to some questions that need some answers - but to our misfortune, he wouldn't answer. Well-mannered is what I agree with, possibly polite as well. Though not so polite in some particular topics though - he seems to have some sort of trauma.<em>

_"He's strong; his magic I heard of is extremely rare and useful. I heard some people saying that he is one of the strongest wizards around these parts."  
>Yes, very strong Andrea. His magic we believe is known as 'Fire Dragon-Slaying Magic', able to wield fire as well as apply it to himself without hurting himself. It was also heard that he is able to wield other types of magic - but according to our sources, we haven't been able to track down those others. As for being one of the strongest - he has been promoted Wizard Saint, a title for those powerful unlike the majority of mages as well as being a good wizard made for justice. It would be an honour to receive that title.<em>

_As for the next few pages, we have at least made Natsu Dragneel do some poses for us; and let us add, those sure are some good photos. You are able to buy these photos at Sorcerer Magazine stores._

The blonde celestial wizard stared at the name - Natsu Dragneel. She pondered, would she herself be invited to Fairy Tail? She immediately had her mind blank as she stared at the next pages of the Sorcerer Magazine. The Saint in some photos would look away from the camera while standing or sitting in some poses that made Lucy have her cheeks turn scarlet. She found one particular pose fascinating. Lucy found herself daydreaming as she stared at the photo; she shook her head to rub out the thoughts.

The next moment, she peeked at the port. It stated Natsu Dragneel boarded the train, and women are welcome to enter the ship. The hoard of women started racing towards the ship as soon as the famous name has been written - Lucy found this suspicious, but boarded it herself out of curiosity. The ship was well-decorated, so much that made Lucy think this was the actual ship with the real thing on board. She found herself disappointed as it was stated through the speakers that Dragneel would be boarding as soon as they start sailing.

The young blonde heard several thuds on the floor, and found that most women have collapsed to the floor - Lucy noted that it was from a drug. Several men started taking approach on her - the wizard stared in their hands to find a sleeping drug. She has been tricked, and she was surprised enough to think the real thing would want to hold a party for no reason.

"Hey, want to have a drink with us little lady? We won't hurt ya'."

Droplets of the sleeping drug, red in colour started to fly in her direction. Lucy whacked it away as soon as it neared her presence - and she knew that she was to receive a beating.

"Playing rough, ain't ya' little lady? Well, we'll play as well."

Hands from behind grabbed her into a pull, and twisted her arms back. Lucy felt the surging pain rise from her palms. A hand reached down to her belt, and the ring from the pull had the familiar sound coming from it. Shifting her eyes, her eyes caught the sight of her keys.

"Give them back! They're precious!"

The buff man holding her keys smirked, walked over to the window - and threw them out of the ship.

"Useless. Well, now you're useless as well."

"NOOO! GIVE THEM BACK TO ME!"

Laughter ran through the ship's deck as the blonde felt tears run down from her eyes. She looked out the window, and hoped to find a golden glow - but found none but the murky clear blue sea. Lucy lost hope as she saw one of the men grab a large metal rod. Seeing its sizzling end, Lucy turned away and protected her forehead from the burn of the nearing boiling stamp.

"Well... how about become a slave-"

A crash stopped further action. Lucy saw someone go through the roof of the ship. The smoke became the overhang of the ship as most of the smoke cleared, Lucy saw the figurine of a woman - Lucy may add that this woman surely looks nice, as she spotted red demonic eyes glaring at the men of the ship.

"Oh... what do we have here... some slave traders of that _Prominence_ guy..."

Lucy caught sight of the red scarlet hair that bloomed in the night sky - as well as armour that changed shape as soon as her eyes blinked. The other woman in the room started summoning multiple swords in a circle around her armour that itself had blades of a sword.

**_"Dance, my blades..."_**

The blades circled the woman once more, before steering towards the men who shook in fear. Each swing of the sword made a cut on the men, as they collapsed as soon as the blade nipped into their skin. Lucy found herself once again in amazement at another amazing feat of an effortless attack - Lucy deemed to make herself stronger as well. Lucy didn't realise a pair of eyes on her.

"Well, who are you? Are you all right?"

Lucy looked up from her daze to look at the previously-fighting woman, she seemed to wear a normal set of armour, Lucy noted.

"I'm Lucy; I was one of the captured women on the ship."

The red-haired woman nodded and grabbed Lucy's hand to pull her up.

"Erza Scarlet. Is there anything you need before we get to port again?"

Lucy found herself having tears run down her face - she remembered about her thrown keys. Erza peered at Lucy curiously, seeing as she was about to cry. Lucy just wiped her tears away, using the back of her hand - before looking up at the woman again.

"I... lost my celestial spirit keys. They're precious to me and the slave traders threw them away... I'm not sure if I can find them in the ocean though..."

The armoured lady simply looked in the ocean, and took a dive in - seconds later; Lucy stared at Erza in amazement. She was able to locate her keys in the forbiddin-endless sea - the red-haired lady simply replied she was able to sense peculiar-shaped metal objects in the ocean. Erza took hold of the steering wheel, and drove back to port.

"Well, Erza… you look like a Fairy Tail wizard…"

"Of course. Do you want to join the guild? I'm sure you'll fit in."

Erza looked back at Lucy, a similar glint in every Fairy Tail members' eyes. Lucy then remembered from the Sorcerer's Magazine about this red-haired woman.

"Have you heard of Fairy Tail's Titania – Queen of the Fairies?"

* * *

><p>Lucy looked through the windows of the train – Port Hargeon seemed to glisten with mischief and greed, after all, all Lucy could remember from the town was disgusting slave traders, cheap shop owners that make things way too expensive and people needed from other towns to help this Port survive. Lucy let her eyes shift to the front of the train, and a sweat dropped from her cheek as she saw the red-haired woman across the seat from her – all she did was talk about herself, her priority in the guild and some bits of information about the guild.<p>

This woman is named Erza Scarlet AKA Titania – which Erza had no idea where the name has come from. Erza's main magic type is **'Re-quip'**, this type of magic allows the user to acquire objects from their magical holder and replace the previous object with the new objects. She has shown this by quickly replacing her armours with different selections – such as Erza from her normal Heart Kruez Armour into the Heaven's Wheel armour, Erza is also able to acquire many selections of swords and use another type of magic called **'' **to control her swords into different directions.

"What do you think of Fairy Tail?"

Lucy once again sweat-dropped as Erza nonchalantly asked the question, while eating her favourite type of cake – strawberry shortcake. Lucy wanted to ask herself if Erza can even wear a normal set of clothes, why would a knight each such a fancy cake, Lucy would say. The blonde-haired wizard decided to answer after the daunting dead silence.

"Well… I think it's pretty dangerous for me, since I heard of the destruction they made. Nevertheless, it should be very fun to be in!"

Erza smiled in respect of her answer, the red-haired Fairy Tail wizard remembered about the insults about their wizards from locals in town – always causing destruction that they soon would be in debt with the worst bank in the world, or just not having a clue about the amazing accomplishments her guild did as they only seemed to remember about wizards all day lazing around in the guild hall drinking alcohol. Then an image of a person appeared in her mind – Erza seethed and Lucy noted to not make this woman angry.

Both woman stared out of the window, and found themselves nearing the station of Magnolia, the town having Fairy Tail situated in it.

_Happiness is bliss... isn't it, at Fairy Tail?_

* * *

><p>Lucy walked alongside Erza, which Lucy seemed to inch away from. The red-haired knight had asked Lucy to wait a bit, as she received a large post from someone - Erza ripped it open and a large horn seemed to appear. Lucy had the urge to scream, and scream she did. Erza raised a brow, not taking a clue about the large size as she easily put the horn onto the palm of her hand and held it up in the sky - showing the world of her feat.<em><br>_

"W-where did that come from?"

"A horn from a demon I slated four days back. The villagers were generous enough to decorate it for no pay. Is it a problem?"

"N-not at all!"

Lucy cringed, imagining the size of the over-large demon that Erza seemed to easily slay. Lucy fought back the thought, thinking about other wizards as strong as the red-haired knight. Beside Lucy, Erza seemed to pour an intimidating aura - looking like a demon as she seemed to want to kill someone.

The pair inched towards the guild, which was a couple blocks away - slightly in sight, to only find a lion-orange-haired young man run in their direction. The man noticed the pair, in which he smiled smugly as he skidded in the blonde's direction, to only stop in the presence of Erza's daunting aura - he screamed, and ran back to the direction of the guild.

"What was that...?"

"Loke. The damn womaniser."

Lucy only nodded as she now recognized the look he gave her, it was that playful smile that only belonged to those types of boys - Lucy noted he was somewhere in her book of perfect boyfriends, she took down the information to cross out Loke from her book; her image of him was destroyed. The pair proceeded to walk towards the guild, despite many locals inching away from them as they spotted the large demon horn on Erza's palm.

As they near the guild, the blonde and red-haired women gradually hear the noise coming from the guild getting louder and louder - the celestial wizard was able to spot several things flown everywhere inside the halls through the windows. Erza's eyes hardened seeing the despicable manner coming from her very own guild, watching them acting crazy as a frenzied beast - the red-haired woman proceeded her walk to the guild faster, catching the blonde beside her off-guard.

The knight kicked open the doors of the guild, while miraculously still holding the horn barely in her palm. Lucy shrieked as a table was flying in her direction, though Erza saved her with a chop at the flying object.

"SILENCE!"

Those who were playing around froze as they heard Erza's intimidating voice boom throughout the guild.

"I will not tolerate this despicable behaviour from my guild. Just because master isn't here doesn't mean that nobody will scream and punish you!"

"Wakaba! Pick up those cigarettes you dropped! They are dirtying the floor!"

The name that rung through the guild caused that 'Wakaba' to pick up his dropped buds - in which Lucy spotted as an old man. Nobody else seemed to move, much to the blonde's easily-scared sensitivity. This was already creeping her out.

"Gray! Put your clothes back on! You're revolting!"

The naked man, which Lucy shifted her eyes away from, absolutely had no clothes on - which Erza just said without giving him a second glance. He pulled on his clothes that was somehow scattered across the guild like a bloody massacre.

"You! The one dancing! Dance outside! We have no need for further destruction!"

Lucy noted, that he was probably the only one moving before the red-haired knight's commands - and the blonde made this clear, he certainly looked weird dancing around everyday. The said guy walked out while dancing of course, and everyone seemed to freeze as they heard the large horn drop onto the floorboards - which seemed to create the floorboards underneath it to crumble under its sudden weight placed on it.

"Guh... I think I have said too much already..."

Lucy sweat-dropped as she noted to herself to not have Erza become her babysitter. Most of the other wizards in the guild sighed in relief as their names weren't called out by the red-haired demon. Someone brave enough stepped forward and pointed at the demon horn Erza placed on the ground - which had most of its eyes on the horn already.

"E-er... Erza... what's that?"

"A horn from a demon I slated from the mission I took. The villagers were generous enough to decorate it for no pay. Is it a problem?"

She stared at the wizard who asked and he cringed at her stare.

"N-no..."

"That's good. I have a friend who wants to join the guild."

'Hello everyone... I-I'm Lucy... nice to meet you all...!"

Lucy stepped forward, fidgeting as she felt most eyes on her. Most of the guild cheered and some seemed to throw their mugs of alcohol. Many people greeted Lucy with a big 'welcome to Fairy Tail'. A silver-haired woman stepped up, holding several stamps in her hand.

"Now blondie… what colour do you want your sign?"

Lucy put out her hand, the back of her hand facing the silver-haired woman. Lucy pondered for a bit, and saw the relevance of this woman and 'Mirajane Strauss'. The woman was wearing a simply pair of deep-blue shorts that had the design of being ripped off at the leg openings, her dress shirt was coloured in a deep purple with a splash of white at the right side of her shirt. She seemed to have just woken up, Lucy thought.

"Pink, and on my right hand please! By the way… are you possibly Mirajane Strauss…?"

The woman just nodded sloppily, wanting to doze off again as she pressed the pink stamp onto her hand. Pulling out the stamp, Lucy spotted the pink tattoo of the Fairy Tail sign appear on her hand – she was officially a Fairy Tail wizard, now an official wizard as well! Mirajane sleepily walked back to the bar stool and lay there, dozing off into a world of her own. The guild cheered on their new guild member, but silenced as Erza walked beside Lucy.

"I need assistance from Gray. Where is he?"

The said wizard cringed as his name was called again by the red-haired woman. Propping up to stand in front of her - he sighed and raised a brow at the knight. The guild gasped in realisation as Erza, for the first time, needed help from someone else – Erza has always gone solo. The red-haired knight stared back at Gray, expecting to obediently obey, but that isn't Gray to just obey immediately.

"What's this about now?"

"I need assistance on a problem. Come."

Erza dragged Gray out of the guild, a vein as he pondered on his question while not answering hers. Lucy trudged on behind them as she had nowhere else to go; she looked at the red-headed woman that had just punched the raven-haired teenager – a vein visible on her forehead.

"I didn't even agree! Stop taking me there!"

Gray received another bucketful of painful punches to the gut as he once again asked the question. Erza was trying hard to not blow her head from frustration, releasing all her anger and fury on the poor raven-headed boy. Lucy sweat-dropped as the situation unfolded in front of her eyes, keeping the distance of at least three metres from the fighting pair. The blonde-haired celestial wizard spotted a bunch of red locks that somehow looked familiar from the sidelines – but ignored them as she caught up to the pair that somehow stopped fighting. The red locks swayed as the wind passed through the hair, black pupils stared at the retreating figures of the trio in the distance.

The red locks appeared to be sprouting in all directions, and as the person rose from his position sitting on the rooftops – his black cloak covered his body from plain sight. Pulling the black hood of the cloak over his head, two red eyes seemed to stare out the open through the hood's shadow. Dashing towards the train station in a sprinting manner as his figure was only seen in small glimpses, the man occasionally looked at the trio of Fairy Tail wizards heading towards the train station. He jumped from the rooftop, which made several eyes look in his direction, and passed through the gate into the train station, handing his ticket that came from his cloak pocket.

Entering the train that is going towards Oshibana, he sat down in the empty seat in the first car – he knew he was getting glances from those around him as they witnessed him jump from the roof. Raising his arm, his hand revealed to be holding a piece of paper that had the words _'S-Class'_ headed at the top of the paper – this paper was a mission on defeating a dark magic guild that held captive of one of Zeref's creations. The picture shown to be a three-eyed wooden skull that was propped on a wooden flute, purple-black fumes seemed to sprout from the holes of the flute. The title for this mission was _'Flute of Death'_.

Hiding the piece of paper back into his pocket underneath the cloak, the hooded man spotted the trio head into the car he currently was in. The walked, and sat down directly the seat behind him. As soon as they sat down, the train doors closed, and started to head towards Oshibana. The hooded man listened into the trio's conversation as they seemed to talk about a dark guild named Eisenwald, and that they had the flute that was created by Zeref. The man simply looked out the window as the trio planned out how they were going to defeat this guild and retrieve the flute to destroy, sighing; he knew he wasn't going to be alone after all.

_'Sometimes it is better to be alone. Nobody can hurt you…'_

* * *

><p><strong>So next week, we have chapter 3! ^^<strong>_  
><em>

**On Christmas Day in a couple days, I'll release a Christmas Special! This special has nothing to do with the story, just showing what the guild does on Christmas. I believe in two weeks is New Years Day, yes? Well, I'll also release a special on that day as well!**

**Remember; review, favourite and/or follow! ;)  
>~ Rai-tan, your fellow Fairy Tail readerauthor.**


	3. Chapter SPECIAL: Christmas Special 1

**Hello~ A very Merry Christmas to you from your fellow author Rai-tan!**

**As stated before - this is the Christmas Special of 2014~! Next year in year 2015, I'm 13 years old and finally gone from my child days~! (Not that happy as I'll become an adult in 5 years) Was that surprising? No? Well, if not, then people will find me practically weird for being a young student watching anime that is watched by many adults... ^^**

**Thanks to; ValinNight, gratsulover117, treeofsakuras, Zecorax and Airchampion for reviewing Chapter 2! ^^**

**Well, moving onto the special; WHAT IS WRITTEN HERE MAY HAVE HAPPENED IN THE STORY - BUT WILL NOT BE SEEN AS A 'REAL' CHAPTER. It cannot be seen as a real chapter because of the timeless situation the characters are in (I mean, Sting is supposed to be same as Natsu but he's younger in here. People who weren't at Tenrou Island are supposed to be older and etc…). I guess the specials only show a crucial part of the characters' personalities and behaviour. ^^**

**As for Christmas... I received a red pair of the headphone - Beats by Dr. Dre for Kris Kringle! ^^ Awesome gift from my friend, I'm using it everyday to listen to music! Have you all enjoyed Christmas so far? On Saturday/Sunday this week, I'll release the third chapter! ;)**

**STORY CONTENT:_ 5,824 words_**

**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN FAIRY TAIL.  
>(Should I stop doing that? Everyone does disclaimers and I don't want to look weird)<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Fairy Tail: Desolate Vitality<strong>

**Chapter 2.5**

**Christmas Special**

* * *

><p><strong>Fairy Tail, Year X?<strong>

Wrapping a blood red scarf around his neck, the young man completed the look of a decent outfit for freezing cold springs. His attire was a simple white tee covered under a thin black hoodie, deep sky blue skinny jeans that hugged his legs very tightly as well as white sneakers that had a dark red bottom. He placed a loose midnight-black beanie onto his head that covered a partially large area of his blood-red locks, letting the hoodie fall onto his back. The young teenager stood in front of a mirror to look at his clothing style, the mirror glistened under the bright yellow glow of the midday sun.

"How do I look?"

"Very cool~! Aye!"

The small blue cat replied, who himself was only wearing a simple hat that resembled Santa's hat, and a red scarf that was baby size of course. The blue cat was holding a rather big suitcase as it was as tall as his own height. The man placed the last piece of clothing, which resembled a blue yukata, into his suitcase – which was a reasonable size. This day was Christmas, and magic guild Fairy Tail was going to head to Lys Resort; a resort popular for Springs and Winters. There, they would spend a night at the resort to celebrate the new Christmas that came upon them.

"Are you sure?"

"Aye!"

The man walked into a room, and returned after a while to reveal holding many presents – all in the same colour and pattern. Placing them all down, he did a small wave over the pile of gifts, and they disappeared into his magical space – this was a partial form of the magic **'Re-quip'**, therefore called **'Ex-quip'**. Looking at the floor that withstood the mountain of recently-transported presents, he raised his stare to the blue cat that struggled to carry his own presents.

"Do you want me to hold those for you, Happy?"

"Aye!"

Sighing as the blue presents tumbled onto the floor, the red-haired man did the same motion he did to his presents, and transported the presents into a different magical space as he doesn't want to mix up their presents. Satisfied, the pair held their case into their hands, heading outside into the open. He was met with a sight of Sakuras that decorated the skies with a bright pale pink; the man was reminded of his previously-coloured hair, as it may have matched the falling petals. The blue cat, Happy, who now was using 'Aera' to sprout his own wings, flew forward through the petals. Sakura seemed to encircle the little creature as it surrounded him with several petals he passed through.

"Come on Natsu~! We're going to be late!"

"Does that matter, Happy? They wouldn't give a care."

"Aye...but lets go Natshu~!"

"Okay..."

Trudging off the steps, the red-haired Natsu stared at Magnolia Park that holds Magnolia's 'Blossom-Viewing' Festival. Turning his attention to the Happy, the blue cat seemed to hold an impatient look as Happy was just floating in the same spot. Natsu then suddenly appeared next to the blue cat, leaving a trail of blood-red fire that shown how the red-haired teenager went up to Happy. The blue cat shrieked in shock as his partner has never done this before, as well as nearly giving him a run for the toilet. The pair walked towards the wizard guild, Fairy Tail - the Lys Resort ticket in their hands.

"What was that Natsu? That was cool~!"

"I'm experimenting. It's similar to Laxus' movements."

Happy landed onto Natsu's shoulder, and his wings disappeared as soon as his feet touched his red-headed partner. Natsu ignored the weight on his shoulders, and headed to their guild. He sighed as he knew it would just like the old days.

* * *

><p>The doors of Fairy Tail building opened, and everyone became silent as they realised who just entered the guild. Some of those who had guts would glare at the red-haired teenager, all they would get was a dark glare in return - they would shiver thinking about the demonic meaning behind the glare. Natsu sat down alongside Happy at an empty table, the tables around Natsu started to empty as well - both in fear as well as anger. The red-head heard some muttering, but knew they were about him - the guild members seem to have forgotten about his sharp hearing.<p>

"Murderer..."

"Why is he still in our guild?"

"A dark wizard shouldn't be in Fairy Tail..."

"I think he is here for a dark guild..."

Looking up from his daze, Natsu emitted a dark aura that somehow got into the shape of a large black dragon, red eyes staring down at all the other wizards - it was as if he was possessed. Many cowered, while those brave enough gleamed back at the depressing shape. Natsu dampened the aura as he was sick at staring at those glowering under him, the dragon-like shape soon snuffed out and everyone seemed to have calmed down. The blood-red hair seemed to ruffle a bit as the dragon lowered back into his form, nevertheless, the teenager clicked his fingers to have a book appear before him - the red book dropped into hands, and he started reading. Everyone started to return to their previous chatter.

A blonde man with a lightning bolt scar across his left eye watched the pointless situation as the guild seemed to want to fight Natsu, but wittingly depleted as all the red-haired did was emit some aura. The lightning wizard transported, and appeared next to Natsu - creating another silence as many wondered what the blonde was going to do.

"What are you staring at, you weaklings?"

"How dare you insult us! We can beat you any time!"

"With Natsu and the Thunder God Tribe together? Impossible, you weaklings couldn't even beat Bickslow by yourselves."

"Tch! Lucy beat him by herself!"

"She didn't do it herself; she used that lions' help."

"Laxus, you bastard!"

A raven-haired man and red-haired woman darted in Laxus' direction, their mouths seething in disgust. As soon as they neared the lightning user, Laxus moved his arm to pick up the reading red-head by the collar, and used Natsu as a shield as the three made contact. The seething wizards have made contact with the red book - therefore causing it to cripple into itself, and rip into millions of pieces, the previously-reading wizard stared at his empty hands. Laxus let go of the red-head, and Natsu simply landed on his two feet, still staring at his empty hands, that was when he turned his head to glare up at the blonde.

"Why did you do that? My book is destroyed now."

"Showing them that even books can block their weak attacks."

"You wasted my money."

"It shouldn't be that expensive."

"It was pre made for me before the release, now you just destroyed the book that I was going to publish."

"..."

Laxus sighed, and chucked a bag of jewels at the red-haired young adult. Picking the bag up, Natsu looked up with an expressionless look - Laxus stared back, not knowing he was tricked through a petty effort. A small grin smeared the red-haired wizard's mouth as his lips opened to state his real intentions.

"Thanks for the money. Now I can finally buy that cherry cheesecake without using my savings."

"... YOU TRICKED ME!"

"You should have known that I'll never publish a book in the first place."

"Oi! Don't act like we are flies!"

The pair looked back at the raven-head, and the red-headed woman. Several pulses were visible on the defeated pair. Laxus just sneered at them, while Natsu stared back at them as cold as ice. The raven-haired teenager hesitated as he looked back the red-haired man; the pair glowered under their gazes, and hurried away from their presences. Laxus sneer widened as they rushed away.

"Pathetic."

Several others from the guild growled at Laxus' compliment, but stopped as soon as Natsu's pupils landed at them - the blonde noticed Natsu's pupil flash bright red for a moment. The two dragon slayers noticed a pair of eyes on them, it was the youngest dragon slayer they have met - Wendy Marvell, noticing their gazes on her, and she shied away as soon as her pet called her.

"Okay, is everyone listening?"

Nobody noticed their master stand on the stage, microphone in hand. Everyone in the guild turned to the stage; the small master started to explain the trip to their resort, also explaining they'll get there as soon as the next day starts, many groaning on the amount of travel required to get to Lys Resort. Natsu didn't bother to listen, as he made a red book appear, which somehow resembled the previous book he read - the blonde noticed this and glowered as he wanted to give Natsu a beating.

* * *

><p>There was an eerie silence as no sound was made except the winds blowing through the area. The red-haired young adult stood alone as he stared at the retreating figures of several carriages heading to the resort, he sighed as nobody left room for him to sit in - though he expected this to happen, so he made sure for another way to get there.<p>

"Natshu~!"

"Ah-!"

The blue cat pounced onto his partner as they were left alone. Natsu grumbled and shot Happy a look, which the cat made sure not to anger any more. Loosening his hold, Happy let go of his partner and joined Natsu by looking at the running carriages.

"How are we going to get there, Natsu?"

"I found some leeways. Where to go through..."

"Where to?"

"Which guild do you want to go to?

"Hm... Sabertooth?"

"Good choice, they're closest to the resort than any other guild."

**_(A/N: Since some locations aren't known, I have made some hypothesises on where they're located. Sabertooth is near the mountains [NOT Mt Hakobe] on the west of Magnolia. In the map of Fiore [you can find it in the Fairy Tail wiki], you can see an unlabelled black dot near Shirotsume Town - I have decided that's the location of Lys Resort)_**

* * *

><p>The red-head tapped the blonde that was slightly younger than him. The blonde turned and was faced with his idol; a gleam crossed his eyes and widened his already wide grin as his eyes reached up to his idol's face. Happy, the blonde who recognized the cat as his idol's partner, leaned on the red-head's cheek as he lay on his shoulder.<p>

"Hey Natsu-san!"

"Sting."

"What brings you here?"

"I want to ride that air ship to get to Lys Resort."

"Oh, Lys was it? Easy~! I'll ask Master Jiemma for you!"

"Make sure to tell him that I'm not fighting."

"Yeah yeah..."

* * *

><p>Natsu and Happy plopped themselves down onto the couches as they stared down at the passing land through the big window. The pair noted to ask again to ride this air ship again; it was the best quality out of the whole of Fiore. The red-head found him drinking tea across his blonde ally. The airship was decorated in glossy white, silver and blue objects and patterns that somehow made the ship become one with the royal ships, Sting stated that he once mistook their ship as one of the palaces'.<p>

"Natsu-san, why didn't you go with the rest-... oh? I remember… they don't really like you, right Natsu-san?"

"Yes, they carry it like a curse."

"That's quite stupid, why don't they just get it over with?"

"Apparently, not murdering someone is a crime."

"Not like they know it..."

Silence took over as the two stopped talking. Natsu spotted the shape of several buildings, the shape of a resort. It wasn't even the next day, and his guild hasn't even arrived yet - all they would expect from Natsu was to never arrive or arrive days later. Sting grinned as the red-head stared down at Lys Resort. The blonde walked up to his idol and the two fist-bumped as the ship stopped to land onto the clearing near the resort.

"Tell me about their reactions! I bet that they would lose their heads!"

"...Okay. How much do you bet?"

"Hm... 100,000 jewels?"

"You're going to get broke."

"HEY!"

Natsu and Happy hopped off the air ship, and waved it good bye as soon as their feet landed onto the ice-cold grass. The pair turned when the ship disappeared from sight, the sun dropped to its bright orange glow as it hit the brinks of the ground. The blue cat flew towards the resort, Natsu following as a small smile planted onto his lips - it has been a while since he has had a positive feeling once in a while, though he knew this feeling with dissolve at the following sun rise. Natsu noticed a woman approaching them as they stepped onto the resort grounds; she looked like the head of the place.

"You sure are early; did you take a different route?"

* * *

><p>Natsu rose as quickly as he could as a ring from his alarm rung noisily, switching the alarm off. Hopping off his bed, Natsu quickly put on the simple white tee from the previous day, but instead of the black hoodie, he wore a long knee-length midnight blue jacket - although the thickness of the jacket was paper thin. Black tights worn over his legs completed with completely pearl white high-top converse shoes. The beanie from the day before was placed on his head; around his neck was a thin necklace that had the script of a dragon as it hung in the centre, his fingers adorned simple white fingerless gloves.<p>

The red-haired dragon slayer stepped out of his room, Happy dozing off as he leant on his partner's cheek. The dragon slayer headed towards the entry way, then proceeded to wait on a bench after being offered some coffee. The owner sat beside Natsu, and like him, she was drinking coffee.

"What time is it?"

"Around 10 in the morning."

"They should arrive past midday."

"So you did come early."

The pair sat in a comfortable silence as they watched the frozen dew from the points of the meadows to lick off the grass, as it neared 1 in the afternoon; the red-haired dragon slayer decided to eat some lunch. Calling for service, the pair was munching on some dumplings; the smell so close to Happy's nose caused him to jump up from his dozing and scream fish. As expected of the high quality service, fish appeared in front of Happy's eyes – he started to eat his lunch as well, although muttering that he would rather have raw fish.

The trio spotted some carriages arriving as two hours passed, Natsu nodded at the owner of the resort, and she took the sign as she walked towards the entry gate. Natsu silently watched, drinking his coffee in the process, Happy was nibbling on the bone to eat the excess bits of the fish. The carriages neared, and Natsu could spot the un-mother-nature-like tracks left behind, in the corner of his eyes, he spotted a shadow enter the area, by the cloak design – the red-haired dragon slayer noticed it was Mystogan. Natsu waved a little in the man's direction, the man nodded in respect in return before heading to his room.

"Geh… Why did it have to take so long…?"

"I want to sleep the whole day…"

"I would have rather gone to Akane Resort…"

The dragon slayer spotted everyone hopping off their carriages, and raised his head to look at the noisy group enter – it was no longer going to be quiet. Natsu noted that many people have noticed his presence, and gasped as they arrived later than he was. Laxus just nodded in acknowledgement as he knew the fire dragon slayer was prepared to be left alone, not that he wanted to do it.

"WHAT?! NATSU?!"

"He's here already?!"

"Impossible…"

"He should've left the party the second we left him…"

Natsu returned the compliments with a glare as they prepared to abandon him; people backed away from the stare and looked down, their new interests in their shoes. Natsu rolled his eyes and left the guild's sight as he sat down underneath some Sakura trees, Happy went off to greet everyone – forgetting he had a fish in his hand, the blue cat nearly whacked everyone with his bony fish. Luckily he was reminded by the blonde, Lucy Heartfilia, that he was holding finished fish.

The group bickered, and scattered off to their assigned rooms, unpacking their belongings into their rooms. Natsu took this chance to have some peaceful time; heading towards his room, Natsu noted there was the sound of unpacking – peeking through the opened door, the red-haired dragon slayer sighed in relief as it was only Mystogan. Going through the door, Mystogan looked up, did another respectful nod before going back to his unpacking.

The red-head plopped down onto his bed and read his book; _'Lonely Light'_, this particular book the fire dragon slayer found was something he himself could relate to. The protagonist was trying to do well, but people only saw him as an evil person – never letting him out of their village as they think he would try to conquer the world. This book showed the ways of how to prove yourself that you may not look like what you think and do – the red-head found him attached to the book, it was his first time reading the book, but he was totally captivated of its story line.

The two roommates pondered in their business as neither attempted a conversation, resulting in the comfortable silence the pair was most relaxed in. Mystogan finished his unpacking his belongings, which wasn't much at all, therefore the hooded man was reading a book that seemed to explain about the ancient scripts of the most ancient types of magic. Natsu was still reading his book, unable to peel his eyes off from the words. The hooded man finished his book, and looked at the dragon slayer across him.

"Are you hungry?"

Natsu finally looked up from his book; cold eyes stared back at the pale steely eyes of the hooded man. The dragon slayer closes his book, creasing the corner of the page to hold which page he was currently reading.

"No."

"…Okay."

_'I'm not hungry for food; I'm craving for care – though you'll never understand."_

* * *

><p>Several hours later, the sun dimmed as it neared the ground, an orange glow covering the surface of the area. Everyone gathered in the dining room, Natsu and Mystogan placed themselves on Laxus' table, who he was already sitting with his Thunder God Tribe members; the fire dragon slayer and the cloaked man sat themselves down on the remaining two chairs left on the small table. Laxus and the Thunder God Tribe greeted the two, many eyes turned to the table with possibly the strongest members of Fairy Tail – Laxus scowled at the audience, and they turned away in fright.<p>

The fire dragon slayer was surprised as three gifts were handed to him from the remaining members of the Thunder God Tribe; Bickslow, Freed and Evergreen - another three was handed to Mystogan. The two individuals stared at the three in confusion,

"We're going to a mission later, so we decided to give it to you early."

The pair nodded in understanding, and hid the presents from others sight; the dragon slayer used **'ex-quip'**, the other individual did the same. The _Thunder God Tribe_ then became absorbed in their previous conversation, some points trying to include the dragon slayer and the prince into their talk, but received an indifferent look from the pair. The blonde dragon slayer once in a while would glare at the other dragon slayer on his table, the other would just slightly smirk, and then stare indifferently at him – the guild members spotted several veins popping out of Laxus' forehead, but the veins dampened as the smell of food hit everyone's noses.

"Finally!"

"I was wondering if they would ever come…"

"It was only 7 minutes of waiting…"

As the platters of food arrived, everyone dug in. On the platter in front of everyone was thin slices of roasted beef and grilled salmon propped up in a diagonal manner, it is coated in honey-like gravy. The meat leant over the Asiago Polenta that sparkled a creamy sunset orange, on top both the Polenta and meat was truffled mushrooms cut into thin arrow-shaped mushrooms. On the side were a couple of toasty potatoes, fresh sizzling-hot broccoli and peas – the combination of the different foods made an elegant stance and a mesmerising overall smell. All were fit into a plate the diameter of 8 inches (20.5 centimetres); the height of the food stacked together was only 2 inches (5 centimetres).

Laxus, Evergreen, Freed, Bickslow, Mystogan and Natsu watched everyone else in a hurry; noisy slurps and heavy munching was just as noisy as the whole guild brawling and yelling – some food flew in the air as people hurried to eat, the small table watched in disgust of everyone else's table manners. The fire dragon slayer pulled out his black smart phone from his pant pocket, taking some professional shots in different angles of the food he is going to eat.

Their table, being the only table that was able to maintain their appetite after watching food fly everywhere started to eat, keeping mind of their table manners. The blonde placed a slice of grilled salmon into his mouth, and looked over at Natsu; who was already finished with his food, wiping his mouth with his handkerchief. Laxus put down his fork, gaping at the already-finished individual across his seat, Natsu turned from Laxus' sight and took a photo using his smart phone of everyone else eating on the other tables.

"Y-you're already finished?!"

The fire dragon slayer turned, knowing it was addressed to him; the red-head looked at his empty clean plate, and then looked back up at the questionnaire. Natsu stared at the full nearly-untouched plate of Laxus' own food; Mystogan ate and looked at Laxus' full plate, the hooded figure nearly done with his own food. The dragon slayer decided to answer Laxus' question, not fully understanding the meaning of the question.

"…Yes…?"

Everyone silenced as the fire dragon slayer was still wiping his mouth with his white handkerchief, staring at him agape; people started to race to see who can eat fast. The red-haired dragon slayer only raised a brow at everyone's strange behaviour, quirking a brow at the cloaked man beside him; Mystogan only shrugged and finished his food after Natsu. The _Thunder God Tribe _this time gaped at the individual beside the red-head, the pair was left in confusion at everyone looking at them strangely; the two stood up from their seats and dumped their plates onto the counter, where immediately the cleaners snatched the plate to clean. The pair returned to their seat, waiting patiently for dessert; looking at everyone else this time eating more quickly.

Dessert arrived after the last person dumped his plate to the cleaners, and the sweet smell filled many noses. The dessert was _flan crème caramel_, a French expensive dessert that required a heavy amount of eggs and cream to create a fluffy pudding that had dripping sweet-smelling caramel on top – this pudding is similar in shape and smell of custard puddings. A top the crème caramel was two pairs of raspberries and blueberries that had its bottom drowned in the runny caramel; behind the fruits was hardened caramel designed in a peculiar shape, the hardened caramel design was stuck into the pudding, creating a look of a wall covering for the fruits. Surrounding the crème caramel was the remaining liquid caramel that slipped off the top of the pudding, the smell indeed was very sweet.

The red-haired dragon slayer once again took several shots of the very fancy dessert presented before him, ignoring the intent look of Laxus directed at him. Natsu grabbed hold of the fork, Laxus and the _Thunder God Tribe _watched Natsu start to eat. As soon as they blinked, the dragon slayer wiped his mouth with his handkerchief, placing his fork down – the team just stared at the dragon slayer wide-eyed at the impossible feat he have just done in a mere split second. The group just went on to eat their food, though they heard a loud snap ring in their ears. The table looked up from their food, and spotted the fire dragon slayer holding his midnight black phone in their direction – the camera in the corner of the phone facing them.

"Y-you took a photo?!"

"Your faces looked funny, so I wanted to save it for Sting to see."

"Sting?! That brat?! Delete that photo right now!"

"It's my phone, not yours."

The guild watched Laxus erupt in anger; lightning sparks covered his entire figure as he darted for the black phone that Natsu was holding. The lightning wizard, being the fastest out of the two when they last fought a year ago, thought he could snatch the phone but was faced with thin air whenever he darted for the phone. Laxus noted that the fire dragon slayer has improved a lot from when they last fought, so the chase started to become more like an assassination rather than a normal snatch.

* * *

><p>Laxus waved at the members of the <em>Thunder God Tribe <em>as they left to go on an assigned mission. The blonde sighed as the members were now no longer in sight, he was left with Natsu and Mystogan to chat with. Mystogan was shy around everyone, except the red-haired dragon slayer; so Laxus couldn't possibly want to start conversations with him, he would only get small answers, no attempts from the cloaked figure to continue the conversation. The lightning wizard knew he could talk to the fellow fire dragon slayer all right, but not after seriously pissing him off of that picture he took with his smartphone – so he basically has either a pair of emotionless bastards or the arrogant and dense members of the guild to talk with.

The red-haired dragon slayer spotted Laxus in distress, and only proceeded to return to his conversation with Mystogan, who obligingly replied back so the conversation wouldn't run short. The sun disappeared from view, and the midnight skies took over the once bright orange coating. The pair heard the announcement through the speakers that the guild should prepare for the Gift-Giving; therefore the fire dragon slayer re-quipped out all of Happy's presents and handed them to him, which Happy just complained over as he couldn't carry them all. Several minutes passed, and the final announcement was called.

**"All members of Fairy Tail please gather in the main Lys Resort block! The Gift-Giving Event is just about to start!"**

The pair noticed many members dash out of their rooms to head to where the remaining members stood. Laxus, Natsu and Mystogan followed suit, calmly walking towards the ever-growing crowd. As soon as the rushed moment passed, a silence replaced the trotting of the steps people took, many of the members squirmed under the pressuring and stressing situation they were placed under with.

**"All members have gathered, yes? Well, let's get starting then! You all can see drawn boxes at your right and left, yes? Those areas are for people to place presents down, but each area has a nametag of who is going to receive all those gifts in the area! So please mind who and where you're placing your present! Go ahead and start away!"**

People darted toward different areas, all placing down gifts in the given areas. Mystogan placed his only present down in Natsu's area, which only had two decent-sized presents, compared to the other people's piles as their gifts ranged from ten to twenty, Natsu seemed to be insignificant to everyone else. The fire dragon slayer sighed, and walked over to the growing piles and placed gifts down while hidden from everyone else's field of vision.

"Wendy! What are you doing?!"

Everyone turned to see Wendy place down a present in the fire dragon slayer's area, which many gasped at as their cute little sky maiden gave a gift to a demonic murderer. Wendy looked at her partner, Carla the white exceed, who just yelled at her, and seemed to throw a glare at the cat – which Carla stepped back at.

"Natsu-san did nothing wrong! You never met him in the past!"

"All I see about him is that he's a murderer! Wendy! If you get close to him, you'll get killed! Just like what happened to another guild member!"

Wendy looked down at her feet, turning away from Carla, she moved to the next area – her feet moving fast as she walked away from Carla, who followed her. Wendy seemed to emit an angry aura as red cloudy nearly-transparent steam formed around her. Wendy placed a gift in Mystogan's area, which was exactly the amount as the red-haired dragon slayer's amount of gifts in his area.

"…But that was a long time ago, how many innocent people did Natsu-san kill other than her?"

"…"

"Think about it Carla."

Everyone thought about it, but all they could think up of was that the fire dragon slayer manipulated the small child, so they glared at Natsu who somehow already was done with placing down his gifts. Mystogan spotted a pair place down their gifts in his and the red-haired teenager's areas, not that anyone else noticed though. One of the pair was a blue-haired woman that always wore warm woolly clothes and a French parasol in her hand, beside her was a long spiky raven-haired man that Mystogan recognized as the iron dragon slayer.

**"Is everyone finished giving their gifts? Please go ahead and open your presents~!"**

The majority darted towards their designated areas, thrashing their presents open; letting the wrapping paper fly in all sorts of directions as they only stare at the presents they received. Natsu and Mystogan stared at their nine presents; the two turned to each other and showed each other what they bought for the other. Natsu opened his gift from Mystogan, and found himself staring at the sparkling pair of black fingerless leather gloves that had silver pellets in the place of the knuckles; an outline of a white Chinese dragon was seen at the centre of the back of the gloves, the design was surrounded by six different individual gemstones.

The six oval-shaped gemstones on the left glove were a bright-red Garnet, a deep-purple Amethyst, a baby-blue Aquamarine, a clear Diamond, a forest-green Emerald and a pale-purple Alexandrite. The right glove also had six oval-shaped gemstones surrounding the dragon design; they were a blood-red Ruby, a spring-green Peridot, a night-blue Sapphire, a baby-pink Tourmaline, a pale-orange Topaz and a sky-blue Zircon. Between each gemstone was a silver pellet that filled the space between each gemstone, Natsu noticed a small faint white glow inside each gemstone. The dragon slayer took off his plain white fingerless gloves, and replaced them with Mystogan's gift; his eyes becoming captivated by the glow of the gemstones.

"Those gems are able to help you in combat."

"Thanks. Open mine."

Mystogan proceeded to, and found a small box – he opened it to find a silver ring. The ring was shaped in the form of a helix; in the centre of the ring was a black Jet gemstone that is surrounded by the coverings of the silver ring, a silver leaf was beside the gemstone that's positioned diagonally from the gemstone. Mystogan placed the loose ring onto his pointing finger; the ring stuck itself to the start of Mystogan's index finger and no longer became loose in the place.

"That ring helps you teleport, maybe it helps for escapes."

"Thanks. I always fought my way out of battles."

The fire dragon slayer opened the rest of his presents and found some pretty useful.  
>From Freed, Natsu received a magical rapier Freed had no use for. (Rapier looks exactly like this = <em><strong>licataknives. deviantart artRapier-of-fear-317552579 **_Google search this, then click the first link)  
>From Evergreen, Natsu received hair gel. The product is able to be used and not wear off until exactly twelve hours, though he had no use for it.<br>From Bickslow, Natsu received a magical metal helmet that looked similar to Bickslow's helmet.  
>From Laxus, Natsu received a pair of twin daggers. (They look exactly like this = <em><strong> licataknives. deviantart artSerrated-spine-fantasy-blade-427157000** _Google search this, then click the first link)  
>From Gajeel, Natsu received some book explaining about magical theories.<br>From Juvia, Natsu received a bag of jewels - which the fire dragon slayer happily grinned at.  
>From Wendy, Natsu received a pair of wireless headphones that had a flame design on the bases.<br>Lastly, from Happy, Natsu received a note reminding about fish - which the dragon slayer made sure to not give Happy any more gifts.

"Woah~! Who gave me this? This is such a thoughtful present!"

Natsu looked up from his presents and spotted Lucy holding some key polishers, his gift to Lucy for being a jerk. Grunting, Mystogan noted it was Natsu's gift, and only patted his back for the dragon slayer to at least appreciate someone he hated. People smiled at the thoughtfulness of the owner and looked around for the person who gave the present to Lucy, the master of Fairy tail stepped up and simply told Lucy to look at the name tag of the box - which he looked beforehand and frowned.

"From... N-Natsu?!"

"Natsu? No way, why would he even bother giving presents?"

"But he gave me a present..."

"What?!"

The people who received presents from the dragon slayer were presented with very useful gifts, some would only be polishing equipment for magic-holder users while others would receive a scroll to improve their magic for. Gasping, they tried to thank the red-haired teenager, but they were greeted with a very dark glare that had finally let everything out. Dark midnight black flames consumed Natsu, and the dragon slayer walked away to his room, the cherry blossoms falling the opposite way he is walking to.

Mystogan and Laxus watched the consequences of everyone's arrogance and selfishness; knowing that the guild had yet to know what Natsu had to face to still stay sane and alive. Mystogan looked at the closed door Natsu entered through, many people stared at the cloaked man as he seemed to disappear from sight after the red-haired teenager left the party. Though not many people payed further attention to the leave, and admired their gifts with high morale in their eyes.

_'You appreciate yourself, yet I gave everything to you… Behind my face is something you'll never understand.'_

* * *

><p><strong>That was the end of Christmas Special~! Thank you for reading!<strong>

**That didn't really was the Christmas spirit, was it? heh... I couldn't fit the happy atmosphere with all the problems Natsu was facing anyways...**

**I think I have revealed some hints about the future events (by looking at the item, new things and personalities). Let me explain some examples;  
>- The air ship shouldn't be revealed in the story until Sabertooth becomes a major popular guild, I can tell you that the ship was a prize from the GMG by the royal family.<strong>

** - Wendy doesn't see Natsu as a murderer (which I'm extremely pleased at her wisdom). Through one of her outbursts, you can tell she has met him somewhere in the past, Carla doesn't really agree though.**

** - Juvia and Gajeel doesn't see the guild as completely positive; obviously that you see someone completely seethed at isn't pleasant, so they're in the same position as Wendy. Gajeel and Juvia respect Natsu, through means after the guild war between FT and PL.**

** - Some gifts Natsu received are going to be very useful and maybe crucial to Natsu himself. Mystogan's gift was the gloves Natsu was wearing in Chapter 2 when he met up with Lucy, let me remind you that you can refer to the gemstones on the gloves as each months' _"Birth stone"._ Not really sure when I'll use the weapons though... The other items are used for his looks. ^^**

**Enough explaining. Have a great Christmas everyone~!  
>~ Rai-tan, your fellow Fairy Tail readerauthor!**


	4. Chapter 3: Familiar Enemy

**Hello~! Rai-tan here! ^^**

**I'm sincerely sorry that I haven't updated on the specified date (Saturday/Sunday)! I was reading Harry Potter fics and found them really intriguing so I forgot (kind of) to write the third chapter! You can clearly see it's rushed, nevertheless, I wrote chapter 3 and didn't abandon the story! ^^**

**Did you enjoy that Christmas Special? Hope you liked it because that was the most amount of words I put in a fanfiction story (I think)! :D**

**Thanks to Pelipz, aradhey. gupta, treeofsakuras, Zecorax for reviewing! I have mixed up the timeline in an order for future references (stated by Pelipz), so I definitely have some ideas about items and personality changes in the future chapters!**

**It's nearing New Years Day~! So a New Years Special will be released on the day! ;) Tell me what you think on the update times - do you want two main story chapters a week? I think I could handle that, but I'll have to change it back to one chapter a week when school starts.**

**STORY CONTENT: _5,012 words_**

**Now... here's the third chapter! Hope you enjoy! ^w^**

**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN FAIRY TAIL**

* * *

><p><strong>Fairy Tail: Desolate Vitality<strong>

**Chapter 3**

**Familiar Enemy**

* * *

><p><strong>Summary:<strong>

Sometimes, those small mistakes would be seen as accidents. An accusation could be seen as a mislead - but nobody knows the truth. After all, sometimes, the truth is too unbelievable to be true.  
>Two-Faced!Natsu. OP!Natsu.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Magnolia Train, X784<strong>

The red-haired dragon slayer leant back on the seat as minutes passed; boredom clouded his mind as the trio behind him continued to talk about his mission - which the three wizards had no right to freely take. The fact that they don't know that the flute was just the core of Lullaby constructed through Zeref's living magic was troublesome; the core could react and come to life through means of others trying to awaken it. He had to make sure he found the flute before any of the three find it, and destroy it as soon as his eyes set on it.

"I was on my way back from work before I met Lucy - I stopped by a bar in Onibas where several wizards gather. A group of wizards caught my attention."

* * *

><p><strong>Flashback, Onibas<strong>

_The red-haired knight walked into the bar with her mountain of luggage alongside, several eyes watched her enter with outrageous looks - mostly directed at the amount of luggage shown. The knight looked around the place, trying to look for the situated ordering table; many small round tables scattered across the room as a big bar table sat at the back of the bar, several people situated on the tables as well as a minimum of four people sat directly at the bar table. Erza walked over to the bar table, and ordered a cup of tea, which she received immediately as soon as she finished her order._

_Sitting down at an area where her luggage was able to stand beside her, the red-head turned her head at the noisy table two tables away from her. There were four men sitting down; two bulky men sat at one half while the decent-sized figures sat at the other. One of the bulky men had black hair stylized in a way in which his fringe would curve upwards, defying gravity, his face adorned some unnatural whiskers that sprouted from his square-like cheeks; his outfit consisted of an inner turtle-neck shirt wrapped under a think vest, he wore plain dark jeans with some brown average shoes. The other bulky man had his silver hair spike upwards like Elfman Strauss, his face was chubby though his lips were much similar to a penguin's; his outfit consisted of an inner yellow shirt covered under a large black coat that had large dishes as its collar, his legs adorned cargo pants and some decent travelling boots._

_Across the raven-haired man was much smaller than him; he adorned a stripy hat that covered all his hair and nearly his diamond-shaped eyes, a pipe was stuck into his mouth that sprouted a lot of smoke; his outfit consisted of a two-coloured one-piece suit that had similar patterns to his hat from the inside. Beside the one-pieced man was a raven-haired man sized similar to the one-pieced man, all his black hair was tied up into a high tight pony tail and all his other features seemed average; his outfit consisted of a tan-coloured buttoned shirt that had high black collars that had a strange black symbol on the back, spotted tan loose pants and shiny black shoes._

_"HEY! Where's my booze?!"_

_Many people looked up at the commotion as a waitress arrived with a mug of alcohol on the tray; her face adorned anxiety, a nervous look spreading over her face. The raven-haired bulky man called out to the waitress as he seemed to have run out of alcohol, since he turned his mug upside down to have several drops of beer drop from the container._

_"Why're you so S~LOW?"_

_"I-I'm sorry!"_

_The waitress walked over to the noisy table, a frown etched on her face as her feet slid across the wet floor. The red-haired knight watched quietly as the situation folded in front of her; though she didn't act as she knew that any magic use in the bar would cause you to be kicked-out._

_"Beard, don't get so angry."_

_"Hrm..."_

_The man threw his mug at the sweating waitress that was about to approach, the waitress, being hit with the mug, slid on the wet floor and fell onto the floor. The table laughed at her clumsiness as they don't realise it was the work of the beer that the raven-haired bulky man dropped. The man turned to his friends, a vein popped from his forehead after his laughter._

_"How can I NOT be irritated by this?! I mean, we finally found Lullaby but it's all sealed up! How'd those geezers even do that?!"_

_The red-head turned at the familiar name of the item the table found, Erza deemed that the table belonged to a dark guild. She watched the table freeze at the man's outburst; they all had dark expressions on their faces as they stared at the man._

_"Idiot! You're so loud!"_

_"Yeah. ...Noisy."_

_"Shit! Not my fault! It was the stupid waitress' fault!"_

_"Hey... It's not like more people will break the spell."_

_"Huh?"_

_The three stared at the pony-tailed man that just stated a fact about the 'seal' that they had not been able to break. The three turned to the man, confused expressions as they stared at the man who had his eyes closed in exasperation though his lips tugged a smile._

_"I'll take care of the rest, so you guys can go back to the guild - please let Erigor-san know as well. I WILL return and bring back 'Lullaby' in three days."_

_"For real~?! Did you already figure out how to break that stupid seal?"_

_"Good job Kage-chan~!"_

_Erza stared at the group one last time; taking one last sip from her cup, she left the bar while dragging her luggage out. What she didn't notice was four pairs of eyes staring at her back as she left, they muttered under their breath, "fly" as the red-haired woman was nowhere in sight in the bar._

* * *

><p>The red-haired male listened to her flashback at a bar in Onibas; he recognized the name Erigor as soon as the name escaped from her mouth. Erigor was seen as a leader in the dark guild, Eisenwald; their guild master was arrested as the council found out about the types of missions the guild took, the guild was forced to disband - but like most dark guilds, they ignored it and continued as a guild. The man felt the air behind his set turn dark from his spine.<p>

"Lullaby...?"

"Is it some type of sleeping magic?"

"I'm not sure... since they mentioned it was sealed; it must've been some type of powerful spell."

The blonde and raven-haired man stared at the red-haired woman as she stared at the floor, her expression turning dark as soon as she finished her statement. The raven-head leant back in his seat using his arms as his cushion, still staring at the knight like the blonde next to him. Natsu took off his cloak, wanting to feel the cool breeze against his skin.

"I don't get it. You just came across these folks that wanted to break some unknown magic. Probably it was just their job, nothing special."

"That was exactly what I thought at that time..."

"Well, how can you think exactly like me? You're not as smart as me-"

*whack*

Punching Gray, Erza's fist recoiled and rested back to her side, walking out the train oblivious to the fact that she just punched her ally - Lucy followed closely behind, not seeing Gray being left behind in the train. Natsu stared out the window as the train left the station of Onibas, he noted that the pair was dropping off at Onibas to locate Eisenwald's location; which clearly shouldn't be at that peaceful town. Sighing, he leant back more into his seat, and watched people get on and off. Natsu noted that the pair left one person from their party behind, which they knocked out and forget about - the red-haired dragon slayer wanted to laugh, but knew it wasn't a pleasant laugh to listen to.

"Sir, is this seat taken?"

Natsu looked up. A man with raven hair tied up in a ponytail stood there, but sat down across him nevertheless; which Natsu questioned on the question the man asked whether he had permission to sit down across him. The raven-haired man analysed the red-haired dragon slayer across him, spotting the red Fairy Tail guild mark on the red-head's shoulder that was shown, not being covered as the red-haired man wore a plain black tank top which hung to his figure rather tightly.

"Oh? You're part of that legal guild, Fairy Tail? I envy you…"

* * *

><p>"Why did I do that!? I was so angry that I left Gray in the train! He won't be able to get off the train because of me! I'm so stupid! It's my entire fault - hit me!"<p>

"...C-calm down... I-it's generally my fault as well... I forgot he was unable to get off the train..."

Storming off to the recently-halted train, they rushed - hoping to be able to reach Gray in time, before he is carried to a far location.

* * *

><p>"Hey... speaking of Fairy Tail...Mirajane's pretty popular, isn't she? She's in the magazine sometime, she's beautiful."<p>

"... I know her..."

The red-haired dragon slayer turned away, and the man named Kageyama leaned in forward as he herd the other man state that he knows her, though he did not think that all the guild members of Fairy Tail had pretty much knew Mirajane from the start.

"Tell me... what's she like in the guild? Oh, and you must have heard of that new girl - I heard she's cute. Do you know her?"

"If you want to talk about those... people, then chat with that guy the seat behind me. He's best friends with them."

"Not popular with the girls, heh? Fly? You're the weakest of that fly bunch then."

"...Fly...?"

Natsu watched the man walk to toward the unconscious raven-haired man, a shadow covering the top half of his face - _'oh...you'll regret that, you ass hole...'_ Rising from his seat, the dragon slayer walked over to Kageyama who continued to kick the raven-haired boy; the left eye of the flame user flashed a bright shade of red, bright blue flames sprouting from the red pupil. He slightly raised his arm that lay by his side, and faced it at the head of the conscious raven-haired man.

**_"Demon Binder."_**

Dark blue flames jumped into action from his gloved out-stretched hand, forming a hand at the tip of the flame - it slung itself around the man's neck, and squeezed. The chocking man started to breathe on blood as trickles of bright red blood escaped his mouth, the droplets splatting onto the unconscious man underneath - resulting the man to stir at the metallic smell it emitted. Natsu's eyes stared right into Kageyama's eyes; the man felt his life being reflected in his eyes as the staring man looked deep, a lifeless look splattering over his already dead-like completely black eyes.

The train halted to a stop, and therefore made Gray stir awake; complaining on the pain all over his body. Though he stopped his thoughts as he stared at Fairy Tail's flame dragon slayer chocking the opposing man to death, or so it seemed; he rubbed off the blood that the awake man felt on his skin, the raven-head decided to think the blood belonged to that suffocating man, not his own. The man shifted his eyes to meet a rather odd flute, a three-eyed skull on one end of the flute - the red-head noted that the flute was also in Kageyama's bag.

**"Sorry for the inconvenience, the train will proceed nevertheless."**

The train platforms suddenly jolted violently, therefore making the red-haired dragon slayer stumble on his feet; the flames that suffocated the man disappeared, and as soon as the man was let go of the flames - he sent a shadow-like fist into his direction. Gray found himself flying out of the train window as well as Natsu, who he himself was muttering why he didn't hold back his killing intent, his eye switching back to its normal lifeless onyx pupils.

The male pair spotted a speeding green car rush in their way, and as they were too late to dodge the speeding car - the raven-haired completely smashed into Erza's form will Natsu was slightly grazed from the car's side. The auto-mobile stopped, Lucy and Happy hopped out of the car while Erza stepped off the driver's seat holding a whining Gray. The four stared at the dragon slayer, Erza with her glare full of hatred.

"What are you doing here?!"

The red-haired male looked up as he notices the question was directed at him; he returned her gaze with lifeless eyes - eyes that had seen many things that seemed to have its own life sucked out, like a body moving while dead without a soul. Erza flinched violently at the cold stare, a trickle of fear run down her spine; Gray and Lucy did the same as they stare at the laying-down dragon slayer. Happy flew over to his partner, helping him up and acted as if the stare was nothing special; a normal action.

"My mission was to destroy one of Zeref's creations; Lullaby. You... people... are stealing my mission."

"You were following us, weren't you, you murderer? That flute was on the train!"

"...Don't waste my time on petty talk."

As soon as the words left his mouth, the atmosphere suddenly felt a lot darker - turning his head; he disappeared from sight, as if he weren't actually living moments ago, as if he didn't exist. The trio and a blue cat followed the train as it rushed towards Oshibana, knowing they'll once again confront the angered red-head.

* * *

><p>Standing atop the train station of Oshibana, the hooded wizard watched as guards started to swarm outside the station – shoving any citizen out or away from the train station. They were yelling for everyone to step away from the station and let them handle the situation, but their words didn't match their actions; many guards just stood outside, too scared to go back in again while a minimum of guards tried to battle against the Eisenwald members, who obviously retreated back outside. Taking this situation into his hands, the cloaked flame dragon slayer jumped down from the roof, catching the attention of many as he landed perfectly fine from a tall building. Walking towards the entrance, guards blocked the way as they screamed at him to go away, the red-head sighed.<p>

"What are you going to do if I go away?"

"T-tch… fine…"

"Appreciated."

The guards stepped out of the way, letting the lone wizard walk into the Oshibana station. He noted that all, if not, most wizards from the dark wizard guild Eisenwald stood at the back of the main hall staring at the wizard that just walked in. Some of the waiting wizards fumed as veins popped out of their foreheads, they seem to imply that the cloaked figure was taking the guild lightly, and thinks that he could take them all on by himself; their magic continued to compress around them – hoping to help service of scaring the lone person.

"Wizards of Eisenwald…"

"Damn right you are! At least you have the guts to talk than those pussies!"

The dark guild laughed as they could hear the guards from outside start to swear back, but of course, they words didn't match their actions. Therefore, the guild laughed more at the ridicule the guards spouted. The man flying while holding a scythe, Natsu noted, was the assassin Erigor; deemed practical leader of the banned guild. Spotting the difference of strength between the leader and the rest of the guild combined had a total difference as the leader still had plenty strength left to fight plenty of other wizards; the red-haired dragon slayer silently '**_re-quiped'_**, letting his simple attire change into clothes more suited for battle.

The clothing included a black vest that connected to the small cloak-like cape around his legs, the trims of the clothing being a silvery-white colour. The vest has both sleeves reach up to slightly above the dragon slayer's wrists, fingerless black gloves he wore that adorned the design of the outline of a Chinese white dragon; the gemstones placed around the symbol glowing under the bright reflections of the sun. A smooth white silk-like scarf wrapped around his neck, the scarf ends being draped down his back all the way behind his knees; a slight ruffle at the end. A silvery blue-close-to-white full-length pants adorned to him, being tightly held around the waist; a black slithering pattern of a dragon on the side of his left pant leg. A pair of midnight-black boots that had the same design from the pants on one side of the boots.

"What is your purpose serving here?"

"Isn't he the fly from the train…? Erigor! A fly managed to come here!"

"A fly...? Oh..."

The deemed leader flew towards the red-haired dragon slayer and started inspecting the figure. Occasionally, he would hover around in circles around the deemed inferior wizard; the red-head spotted the leader's pair of eyes turn a flash of pale-blue before turning back to its original black pupils. Natsu remembered that the pair of eyes that somehow turned into a pale blue was what would be the side-effect of using offensive wind magic; normally, wind magic would be a magical form of support for other members, but changing it for offensive would be astoundingly weak. The red-head observed that the assassin's magic was indeed not for support, and was just as offensive as flame magic itself; seeing the pale skin of the leader deemed that he sacrificed his blood for a more offensive approach.

"You're strange... you don't feel like the other flies. Normally you flies come in groups, you're a strange one..."

"What do you mean Erigor-san? Are you saying this fly is _not_ a fly?"

"I can't get a hold of your power... interesting. What's your name, fly?"

The silver-haired leader plotted himself down to the ground, grinning down at the smaller opponent in slight respect. A gleam in his eyes told the red-haired dragon slayer that Erigor was going to ask next if he wanted to join them, Erigor's eyes switching to its pale-blue hue for a split second, continuously it did that. Natsu Dragneel felt a sudden urge of excitement erupt in his stomach; his left pupil change into a blood-red hue, a purple-blue flame licking around the left eye. The dragon slayer shot a flamed fist at the leader, and as it landed, the silver-haired man found himself pushed into the crowd of his guild; a crazy grin craned control over the flame wizard's lips.

**"I **_A_**m **_N_**a**_T_**s**_U_** D**_R_**a**_G_**n**_E_**e**_L_**!"**

A dark voice rumbled through the silence, a knife cutting into most people's heart as the most-eerie tone they have ever heard came out of the red-haired male's mouth. Noticing the attack directed at their leader, many charged forward at the flame-enveloped dragon slayer; many **'re-quiping' **a wide range of weapons while others shot forward a spur of their own magical attacks. A maniacal grin plastered across the red-head's face as he charged forward alone against the army of dark wizards, his fists alight from the flames.

Kicking, punching, shooting, roaring; the army were soon depleted to approximately half of the original size, Erigor watching from above in pure interest on the young dragon slayer. The red-head himself had sent flames everywhere, leaving charred bodies and train property as his mind clouded in a daze; his flamed eye followed as its lengths followed the flame-user's flexible movements.

As soon as the numbers depleted in a fast rate; four shocked figures entered the fray. They stared at the no-longer sane person who normally kept his cool beat and burn his opponents to the ground, a maniacal laugh erupted from his throat as he fought more and more. His flamed attacks slowly turn blood-red as his left pupil's flame turned into the hue of nearly-charred violets, a blood-red yet bright pupil stare through the flame. The four figures were a red-haired female knight, a raven-haired male, a blonde female and a small blue cat; the four recognized the fighting-dominating figure as one of their most-hated members, Natsu Dragneel.

"N-Natsu...?!"

The insane grin on his face depleted, and his expression turned grim as he realized who stood at the door. Before he took action, the silver-haired leader of Eisenwald flew down from his interesting daze, and stared rather smugly at the other companions of the interesting red-haired dragon slayer. Erigor scanned their presence to be much inferior to the flame wizard's, and a grin meant his arrogance.

"I've been waiting, Fairy Tail..."

"W-what's with all these people...?"

The blonde celestial spirit wizard stared in shock at the amount of people that had their attention, thankfully, on the red-head. Lucy felt herself shocked as she stared at the large amount of the unconscious dark wizards laying on the floor, she looked up from her gaze to see that her companions wore the same expression, if not worse. The female knight stared at the silver-haired half-naked man.

"Are you Erigor?"

"Hey... weren't you at that bar? No wonder you found us."

Erigor, ignoring the question just smiled smugly as the conscious-but-knocked-down allies of Erigor spoke to her as he recognized Erza's hair colour. The two men were the two bulky men the red-haired knight recognized back at the bar. Flying higher into the air, he held out his scythe as he grinned down at four wizards; a fool-hardly effortless grin, Natsu noted, the dragon slayer knew the next words are going to be spout out are crap - in other words, lies.

"Do you not understand? What do train stations have?"

The action around the dragon slayer depleted to zero as the remainder has skipped to the other side of the room, Natsu noted that they're cowards. The flame user turned his attention to the flying assassin that was fooling the four Fairy Tail members with a hint of _'broadcast'_. Erza looked up through her side fringe as she pondered at the hint, but she got the hint as soon as Erigor went as far as to tap the broadcast speakers.

_"YOU'RE GOING TO BROADCAST LULLABY?!"_

The red-haired knight's companions yelled out in shock at the fake motive the dark guild were up to, not that they knew it was a trap. The shinigami of Eisenwald flew around the room using his **'wind magic'**, his back bending back so he would face his opponents that in his view were upside down. Erza's face turned dark as soon as a murderer's grin plastered onto his lips.

"There are probably... thousands of people gathered around this station now. Maybe if we broadcast the Lullaby, the whole town could hear it."

_"INDISCRIMINATE MASS-MURDER?!"_

The Fairy Tail members minus Natsu Dragneel flinched with shocked expressions, the Eisenwald members laughed at their deeds while the flame dragon slayer had a serious-yet-expressionless look on his face. Erigor played with his scythe as he flew back-bent around the room with the same insane grin on his face, which the Fairy Tail members noted was the same grin that was on Natsu's face while fighting the dark-guild's members.

"You know... living a life oblivious to the world with its unfairness is a sin. Thus, simply the_ Shinigami_ has come to punish them. The punishment is _'DEATH'._"

The silver-haired assassin plopped down on the building structure near the windows, the Fairy Tail group felt rage coming to their ears. The flame dragon slayer simply watched with the usual expressionless face, eyeing the flute of death, **'Lullaby' **in the Eisenwald's leader's hands. The blonde celestial wizard stepped up with a determined look on her face, which Gray found unheard of.

"You're rights would never return! Besides, you're the one being the bad one here!"

"We are not simply seeking... rights - we want authority! If we have authority, we can rule the pasts and futures!"

"Idiots! Stupid ideas!"

Erigor simply grinned, ear-to-ear, as he nodded down at his accomplice; the dragon slayer and ice-user recognized it as the man named 'Kageyama' on the train previously. The group noticed bandages stuck around his ears, which may have looked like they were cut from the middle.

"Fools! It would be a shame if you flies couldn't get a glimpse of the... _DARK AGE_!"

The shadow wizard pressed his hands to the ground, and a shadowed hand came out of the ground behind Gray and Erza - the dragon slayer noted the hand was aiming at the most weakest human from the group, the blonde, Lucy. The two figures in front turned their heads and swore as Lucy couldn't help but hold her head from the coming-forth hand; Natsu raised his arm and shot a bullet-shaped fire from his index finger that was pointed at the shadow hand. The flame enveloped the shadow and the hand disappeared, Lucy looked up in shock from the help of the attractive flame-user.

**"What are you people doing here?"**

The four figures turned their attentions to the flame dragon slayer, his expression grimmer than his previous dead-like face - the group noted that he didn't want their presences here, and they certainly knew that having no expression was better than his current mood. The silver-haired assassin took this chance to escape, crashing through the window into the next building directly next to the station. Natsu immediately chased after the Shinigami as he jumped through the window Erigor crashed through - which the group sweat-dropped to.

"Gray! Go after Erigor! Lucy and I will take care of things here!"

"Us two girls against a whole army...?"

The raven-haired man stared back at the red-haired woman in anticipation, looking at her with an _'are-you-serious?' _look through his eyes. Erza didn't find the aggression, but became annoyed to the fact that he wasn't listening to her.

"ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?! GO!"

"A-aye!"

Gray ran out of the station, heading towards the next building beside the station. Erza sighed at his stubbornness but nevertheless looked back at the mass of Eisenwald members that had recently awakened from their knocked-out state by the red-haired dragon slayer. Lucy looked up, muttering that the team has definitely split up.

"Leave those run-aways to me."

A slim man, Erza recognized, was the man with the one-piece outfit and a similarly-designed hat; he had strange black ropes that were wrapped around his fingers to shoot forward, latching onto the rails out of the station as he jumped from his position. Kageyama nodded towards the group and disappeared, which Erza hypothesized, was also after the dragon slayer and ice-make user.

"Lucy, after we're done here - we go after them."

"Okay!"

Erza looked sternly at the large group of dark wizards, Lucy tried to copy with the look as well; but failed miserably with the unfamiliar feel on her face - the blue cat, Happy, pointed at the blonde's face with an amused laughing face. The two Fairy Tail women noticed that all the dark wizards were men, and that they were looking at them - either looking extremely disturbing or having love hearts beat out of their eyes. Either way, the women felt disgusted.

"What can two girls do? They're gorgeous though."

"It's sad that we have to kill them~!"

"How 'bout catching them, then sell 'em~?"

"Wait, we need to watch the Fairies' Strip Show~!"

The red-haired knight's face looked back at them as dark as possible, several popping from her forehead. The blonde wizard had a shocked-stricken look as she stared at the comments and flushed faces of the disgusting men that had their hands out while walking closer to the two ladies.

"Despicable. They are looking down at us."

Erza held out her hand, fist clenched together as metallic liquid started to form around her hand. Lucy held her face with one hand as she looked up at the ceiling of the station, a certain twinkle in her eyes as she looked dazed. Happy appeared beside her using his magic **'Aera'** while tapping her shoulder to gain her attention and speaking in her ear.

"It's troublesome to be too cute~."

"Lucy, come back down to earth!"

* * *

><p><strong>Wasn't as much words as the Christmas Special, but I once again barely passed the minimum. I should really work on my laziness. Well, hope you enjoyed that~! ;)<strong>

**If I wrote more though, I wouldn't know where to end, so I just chose for Lucy to end this chapter!**

**Next is the New Years special in a couple days! So look forward to that! Then I'll try to get two main chapters released on either Saturday, Sunday or Monday, if I CAN write two chapters.**

**Well, toodles~! Don't forget to Review, Favourite and Follow! (If you're generous enough)  
>~ Rai-tan, your fellow Fairy Tail readerauthor!**


	5. Chapter 4: Hidden Truth

**Rai-tan is here~!**

**Sorry for the extremely late update; I've got not many excuses on why I didn't write, you could say that boredom got me again – but since I want to go to the more exciting parts of the story, I should write to get to those exciting parts. Sorry for no New Year's Special; the only thing I could come up with is yukatas and festivals, which wouldn't be much fun to write – Maybe this year's New Years, I can write a special and skip the Christmas one. ^^**

**So… I guess two updates per week is fine; I'm not too busy anymore with the partying. So… to fill up the excuse for not writing the New Year's Special and two and a half weeks delay; I'll try to get another update before Sunday. ^^**

**Have you guys read the manga 'Assassination Classroom' (Ansatsu Kyoushitsu)? There is a 2015 anime adaptation of the manga series; so far, there is only one episode that was released on the 9th of January (excluding the 2011 episode), the next episode is released on the 16th of January. I really love both the opening and ending of the anime series, so go take a look at the series! ;)**

**AK OPENING NAME: **_Seishun Satsubatsu-ron [by SanNen E-Gumi UtaTan]_

**AK ENDING NAME: **_Hello, Shooting Star [by moumoon]_

**STORY CONTENT: **_5,681 words_

**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN FAIRY TAIL**

* * *

><p><strong>Fairy Tail: Desolate Vitality<strong>

**Chapter 4**

**Hidden Truth**

* * *

><p><strong>Oshibana Train Station, X781<strong>

"How despicable, they are looking down on us."

A long katakana formed in Erza's right hand, a small glow grew before it formed completely. Lucy recognized it, the katakana was named Kotegiri Masamune, a sword created by a Masamune sword smith; this katakana has its handles painted blood-red, it has a leather material criss-crossing the handles that is painted in a bright golden-yellow hue. As the light shone on the blade, the red-haired woman's face had a dark look flower over her eyes as her katakana formed for all eyes to see.

"That type of magic is common! It isn't to be so surprised about flies!"

Fairy Tail's opponents; Eisenwald, dashed forward as several types of swords slowly formed in their hands – the blonde celestial spirit mage and the blue cat noticed that their team mate's time span to call her weapon was relatively faster and more efficient than the wizards charging at her. The red-head shook in anger at their reply to her katakana, shadows formed over her facial features as she looked towards the charging members in distaste; springing at them, the whole army clashed as they fought the lone red-haired woman.

Lucy and Happy stared as their team mate swung her katakana in a fast circle-motion that had caused several around her to be either blown away due to the strength of the wind that cleaved alongside the katakana or to be cut from the blade that had swung in their direction; they wondered if their services were even needed to help the S-class woman. The pair spotted an enraged wizard knocked from the wind pressure stand up and aim their arms at the red-head; this, which Erza noticed in the corner of her eye, thus causing her to have her katakana immediately replaced with a long spear.

This spear; Amanohiboko; has a long spear head that is coloured in shades from light violet to white; white at the base of the spear head and starts to have a swirl of light violet and sky blue over the white hue; the spear head has two accompanying spear heads on either side of the spear head that is similarly coloured like the main spear. Holding the spear heads was a golden-brown coloured box that is placed on the top of the handles, a light purple orb is placed in the centre of the black-outlined box. Underneath the holder was a long black handle that had a ribbon curving around it, the ribbon has a swirl of light purple to sky blue – similar to the spear head [reference: onigiriwiki, Amanohiboko]

Striking the mage as she swung it sideways to smash it into the wizard's face from a long distance; several mages noted that a spear was hard to control, so they then ran towards the spear-wielder. The red-head twisted her body and replaced her spear with a pair of twin swords; this pair of twin swords was named Kikusenkaku. The duel swords has a long blade that have blue shades from the blunt part of the blade while the original silver on the blade side. Its handle has a golden swirl at the top and bottom of the handle as decoration, the original handle being a deep shade of blood-red. [reference: onigiriwiki, Kikusenkaku]

Erza, still sporting the enraged look on her face swung her twin swords in a circle-motion while also twisting her body around with the attack. Several were cut while most others has deep violet-purple bruises and gashes on their arms and legs, it wasn't surprising if there were several chickened-out wizards that hadn't had a speck of attack flor in their way. The dominating wizard looked behind her back to see a group rushing towards her; the said wizard jumped in the air and halfway of her back-flip, she replaced her twin swords with a large axe; said axe was named Half Moon Crimson Hanya.

The axe head has the original silver colour near the sharp blade of the axe, though the rest of the axe has a black background that has blossom patterns on one side of the black axe. The area which holds the blade to the handle is in the shape of a silver sun, a blood-red orb was placed in the centre; the handle of the axe was a long golden-brown coloured stick. The handle has silver ends on the bottom and near the holster of the blade. [reference: onigiriwiki, Half Moon Crimson Hanya]

Swinging the axe in the direction of the charging wizards, the axe crushed several wizards as they cowered under the blinding pain that stung their entire bodies while others blown away as the axe dived down beside them as a sonic boom. Lifting the large axe, Erza swung it around in a circle motion despite its weight as she effectively damaged the enemies heavily. The lucky ones were either not hit by her murderous attacks or not heavily damaged as the other unfortunate wizards; a single wizard laying on the ground looked up from his damaged body.

"H-how can you **_'ex-quip'_ **so fast…?"

"…**_'Ex-quip'_**…?"

The curious blonde mage stared at the laying down wizard, an unknowing look over her eyes as she sounded out the unfamiliar term. Despite not knowing the meaning, Lucy knew it had something to do with her red-haired team mates magic that continuously yet spectacularly kept replacing her weapons. The blue familiar propped his wings onto his back as he somehow magically had a teacher's suit appear on his cat-like body, he flew himself onto the blonde's shoulder while still having his eyes plastered on the fight unfolding in front of him.

"Magic swords are just like your stellar spirits; they are stored in a different magical space and you can summon them whenever you like. The procedure in switching between weapons is then called **_'ex-quip'_**; a term used when exchanging and equipping."

Happy explained the procedure of the common magic to Lucy, his explanation somehow resembling one of a teacher's speeches. The blonde mage nodded understanding the new term, in her mind exclaiming how she thought the magic was like – cool; turning their attention towards the fighting **_ex-quip _**mage, they note that they are not helping. Happy just sniggers beside Lucy as he states that Lucy is not capable enough to fight the wizards, which Lucy took as an insult – she karate-chopped her team mate who he himself seemed the more useless than she herself.

The re-head replaced her axe into Taroutachi; a big sword likewise known as an Odachi in Japanese terms. Near the sharp blade has the original silver of a normal blade while the rest of it including the blunt side has a black background, flame-like swirls patterned the background as if flames were under the midnight sky. The holster to hold the blade and handle together was golden in colour, a sky-blue orb placed in the centre; the handle was painted forest-green that was so close to black. [reference: onigiriwiki, Taroutachi]

Swinging the big sword around her, Erza pushed her magic into the sword – therefore causing said blade to set on fire. As the fighting mage hit more opponents that seem to stubborn to go down, she extended the length of the blade – immediately, the flame disappears as if the extension was created by flames. Bringing down the injustice, the red-haired woman swung the sword down as soon as she jumped into mid-air; the impact causing several mages to back away from the attack – Erza looked up from her sword in the ground to see that there were still many to defeat.

"Amazing!"

"This is where Erza's greatness starts…"

Stopping Lucy's clapping was Happy's abrupt comment on the fighting wizard, his eyes had gone a pale grey as his eyes stared with a determined look on his face. The Eisenwald member recently knocked-down by the knight stared at the cat as he muttered the name Erza, his face twisting in slight recognition.

"Still so many enemies to defeat… I'll just knock you all out at once… **_'RE-QUIP'_**!"

The armour around Erza disappeared as it were immediately replaced with magical particles, therefore revealing her naked body for all eyes to see with slight coverage of the magical particles around her. Her hair flailed around aimlessly as if being faced with an explosion in front, her face payed no heed as she stared at the love-hearts that replaced the eyes of her opponents. Lucy had a blush on her face as she looked at the body of her team mate, she had to admit, it was better than her own body – though that didn't stop her from saying in a hushed manner that it looked 'ecchi'. Happy whispered to the blonde celestial wizard that Erza is very shameless when using her magic; Lucy looked back at him with a raised brow.

The magical particles formed due to the hint of the slight sonic boom it created when finally formed; dust flew in the air as it didn't allow eyes to look at the changed form of the **_ex-quip_** mage. A small portion of the dust disappeared to show parts of the form Erza took now; a breastplate that had blades of a sword cover her ample chest, a silver-coloured silk-like material as the long puffy skirt, a head band adorning her forehead with a pair of wings acting as 'ears', Lucy caught sight of a pair of wings that had the same glint as her armour.

"Swordmages usually ex-quip their weapons as they fight, but Erza also fights while ex-quiping her armour to increase her magic."

The dust finally cleared to reveal the red-head in the popular yet powerful armour, Heaven's Wheel armour. Her opponents had their hearts increase in size at her revealing armour that showed much of her bust and thin waist. Lucy noted that there were swords pointed outwards while in a circular position around the red-haired mage, the tips of the swords pointed out; the blonde blurted out that Erza was beautiful which Erza didn't take note of as she looked determined at the love-stricken idiots.

"That's Erza's magic; The Knight!"

"Erza… she can't be-!"

A hand shot forward, her palm facing the crowd that started surrounded her form. A certain gleam of respect flashed across her face before she had then had it become into a more repulsed look – the red-head looked like she was thinking of something, she then focussed back to the task in front of her. Swords started to spin around her in a circle motion,

**_"Dance, my swords… 'CIRCLE SWORD'! "_**

The blades shot from her form while still spinning in a circle as it struck the many enemies down; the blades stopped from their outwards position and rotated to have its side facing the owner, the blades then motioned spinning in circles gradually getting closer to the red-haired mage's form before disappearing. Two blades with wing adornments placed them into her hands, the sword mage then swung her swords to defeat the remaining opponents – as she fought, Lucy couldn't help but stare in awe. Her assistance wasn't needed, but it wasn't like she could handle it.

"Erza Scarlet is Fairy Tail's strongest female mage… Titania! Eek!"

The mage that recognized the red-head ran out of the building with his tail in between his legs; all Erza could do was stare at his retreating form, panting from the excessive use of magic – she wiped a sweat that formed on her bare forehead and re-quipped her Heaven's Wheel armour back to the original Heart Kruez armour she previously wore.

"Lucy, go after him!"

"Eh…?! Me?!"

"Are you declining?"

"N-no ma'am!"

Lucy squeaked at the dark glare she received from her red-haired team mate, she skid off out of the building with Happy closely following her behind. Erza looked around at the groaning mages she defeated that were now standing up rather stubbornly, she held her single sword in hand with anticipation as she stared at the figures of her opponents – quickly analysing their strengths currently. She is able to defeat them despite the weakened state she is in, it isn't like her opponents to not be weakened as well.

* * *

><p>Running through the narrow corridors of the staff building inside the station was the raven-haired ice-make mage, muttering to himself as he questioned why he was the one to go after Erigor. Stopping at the two-way split paths, Gray looked at both paths – shrugging and headed left. From above, through the vents, a man suited in a one-piece suit climbed through – following the running raven-head as he looked through the holes of the vent openings; he couldn't help but have a smirk plaster across his face.<p>

"If Erigor was planning to broadcast the **Lullaby**… where would he be…? Oh! The broadcasting room!"

Gray looked both ways looking for the sign of broadcasting, and found one as soon as the path he took did a sharp turn. Entering the room, he couldn't help but feel ominous as nobody was in the room – he just had this feeling that somebody would crawl up behind his back and scare the brains out of him. As he anticipated, somebody came crashing down through the vent and landed in front of the alchemy mage with a grin plastered on his face.

"Your instincts are good. This would be a nuisance to our plan."

The ambusher had black ropes lunge at him through his fingers, Gray ducked. The rope pulled back to his hands as the ropes hit the walls and several destroyed broadcasting equipment fell off the table, Gray noted that the man was indeed from Eisenwald and that he mercilessly destroyed the equipment needed to broadcast.

"You… your guild isn't going to broadcast… what are you planning?"

"Find out yourself."

The raven-haired mage found a large amount of black ropes lunge in his direction, and Gray couldn't help but be frozen in place.

* * *

><p>Watching from above, the red-head found himself staring at the other red-head go out of the station. His interest piqued as she looked at the guard with a large speaker, his hair waving unnaturally against the wind whilst his bangs whipped against his face – a small grin directed at the red-head who suddenly snatched the speaker from the guard's hands and placed her lips to the speaker input. The man couldn't help but cover his ears in a sitting position as the words escaped her mouth through the speaker.<p>

_"IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIVES; RUN AWAY FROM TOWN! A GUILD OF DARK MAGES HAS INFILTRATED THE STATION AND ARE WILLING TO CAST A SPELL THAT WILL KILL EVERYONE!"_

A silence took over the crowd as they slowly processed the information into their minds, as soon as they got the message, the civilian crowd screamed and ran for their lives as they headed outside the town border. The guards had frowns on their faces as they believed this to be a spectacle, a joke coming from a Fairy Tail mage. A guard closest to the armoured-mage tapped her shoulder, her attention turned to the guard. The red-haired male watched from above with an interested glint in his eyes, his hair ruffled from the wind blowing against it.

"Was that necessary to scare off the civilians?"

"What I just stated is the truth, I recommend you to run as well. My guild is trying their best to prevent this from happening."

The guards then had their faces turn into shock, then into fear as they started to scream as well and run off with the civilians. Erza stared at their retreating figures, wondering why guards are the people not protecting the civilians as they retreat alongside them. As their figures disappeared from her view, Erza turned her head and found her hair whipping at her face roughly; Natsu found himself also affected by the wind as he felt his hair point towards the right side of his head. Looking up, he found the half-clothed Shinigami flying around with a grin on his face; Natsu couldn't help but just stare intently at the man's eyes, they seemed to rapidly change into a pale blue after he blinks.

"What are you doing?"

The Shinigami looked down in surprise at the red-haired figure; Natsu noted that he was exactly like a background in a story – not noticeable. Erigor then grinned and the wind suddenly whipped harsher at the red-head as he felt his head having an urge to loll at his side; it wasn't much of an urge as he kept his body up straight without a problem.

"Flies should be trapped in a cage. Wouldn't you agree? They are annoying after all."

"I would agree with you on the part."

The silver-haired Shinigami raised a brow at the agreement he got with the ally of the flies he referred to. The flame dragon slayer simply stared back at the flying man who had his interests pique; Natsu wouldn't complain, many would call him mysterious and interesting so frequently that he had become used to it as if the breeze flew by. Erigor noted the red hair of the dragon slayer before him whip at him harshly.

"Are you not complaining at the weather now?"

"It is rather nice, who would complain."

Erigor only rose at brow at the peculiar answer he received, he made his process on the wind wall slower than usual – he wanted to converse with this strange teenager. Flying around in circles, he surrounded the boy with a risen brow, a three-eyed skull flute in hand.

"I believe a storm isn't pleasant to normal people."

"Calm weather is what I can't get used to; I believe I'm not a normal person to begin with."

"I believe that you know what I'm doing, why aren't you stopping me?"

Natsu looked up from his daze and stared at the flute in Erigor's hand, the Shinigami didn't seem to notice as he waved his arms around playfully to reveal the flute carelessly. The dragon slayer's eyes hardened at the flute, and tore his gaze back to Erigor.

"I have no intention of helping my 'guild'."

A smile tugged the Shinigami's lips before he busted out laughing, it wasn't sarcastic but out of amusement. The laughter stopped, and Erigor started to wave his arm around in motions before flying off towards the red-haired woman on ground that froze at the speeding up wind. Natsu didn't bother chasing after the Shinigami; after all, that flute was a replica – the red-head decided to find the flute by heading inside. Jumping into a broken window, Natsu landed in an empty corridor – he spotted the other red-head disappear from sight as winds started to speed up and cover her appearance.

* * *

><p>An ice wall propped up in front of Gray as soon as instinct happened to take over, the ropes hit the wall with little effect to the wall. The Eisenwald member simply grinned at the alchemy-make element that the Fairy Tail mage displayed, his eye slightly widening at the speed of the creation.<p>

"Ice-make, hah? Erigor-san's _Magical Wall of Wind _is going to stand up soon…"

"_Magical Wall of Wind…_?"

The raven-head stared at his opponent strangely because of two reasons; one – a wall isn't really magical, and two – why was it named so lamely? The Eisenwald member took it as a sign of confusion and grinned with a look of malice.

"This barrier is to prevent you flies from leaving since you guys just randomly popped up. Originally, the plan was to take-over the train station so there wouldn't be a destination for Clover town to destine on. You know what I'm talking about, right? Think what is going on at Clover Town."

Gray partly knew what was going on at Clover Town; though he hasn't got a clue what was happening. Tracking back to the guild, the raven-haired then remembered what Mirajane had said back at the Fairy Tail bar.

_"The old geezer isn't here Scarlet. He's at that meeting with the other old men over there at Clover; don't tell me that you also have a five second memory?"_

Widening his eyes, Gray than knew that there was a meeting with the guild masters. Shocked, he looked up and stared at the mage; their target wasn't the station, but rather, the guild masters. Though Gray trekked on, was why?

"You're targeting the guild masters at Clover!"

"Correct. Well, you can't go out now."

"Shit!"

* * *

><p>It wasn't long before Erza found herself staring at the wind barrier that formed around the station and also the realisation that struck her like a whip cracking a running horse. The red-head noted that Eisenwald could have already broadcasted it if doing this action was their real plan; though the guild just waited for them to arrive – she pondered why she hadn't thought like that before. The knight, before the wind wall was created, spotted a tuff of untamed red hair show up in the window beside the doors; the anger boiled in her, though the feeling disappeared into the wind wall form.<p>

"Oh? So a fly is outside of its fly cage? Hm?"

"Erigor-!"

Looking behind, Erza sees the Shinigami floating in front of her. To say, she wasn't surprised to see a murderous smile plastered on his face – she needed some information, despite the rather disturbing grin he directed at what it seems; nothing.

"Well, I always wanted to fight against you Titania – but I don't have the time right now…so BYE!"

"…eh-?!"

Dashing forward, Erigor pushed back the scarlet-haired knight into the wind wall before she could put up any sort of defensive instinct. Gasping as the wind enveloped around her and pushed her inside the barrier, flying a couple meters; Erza impacted upon the station doors with her legs dangling in front of her – she had to admit, it was a weird feeling vulnerable. She felt that type of feeling before, it was nerve-racking and heart-felt to many others; she didn't know she would need to embrace that feeling soon.

Jumping onto her feet, she tried to pry her hands into the wind barrier to escape but pulled back almost instantly as the wind cut her fingers; the feeling of tornadoes ripping your skin was just as painful as what she had put her hands in, though Erza swore that it was just metal scraping against her skin. Fortunately, the latter was most what she could relate to her injury. Hissing as her hands turned into an alarming red, she pondered on what she needs to do; remembering about the red-haired male in the station, she headed inside with a big slam in signal of the doors closing.

Inside the main hall, the red-haired woman knelt down near one of the laying wizards of Eisenwald; grabbing a hold of their collars, she brought them up to her face – one by one asking how to dispel the wind wall. Sighing in frustration, she threw the last mage down as she received no answer. A door opening made the knight look, and she found the ice-make mage enter the main hall.

"Gray! The wind wall formed!"

"Yeah, I know. It prevents us from going out; their real target is the masters at their regular meeting in Clover."

"I figured that out a while ago… how do you dispel the wall though…"

"Well… what about Kageyama? You mentioned he dispelled the flute; his magic could also be dispelling."

Nodding, the pair started on their search for the shadow mage. Leaving behind a whole group of laying dark wizards, they didn't get to catch the plan of another wizard chasing after them; same person yet different intentions.

* * *

><p>Walking through the lone corridors, the red-haired male trekked on to find the raven-haired mage from Eisenwald – his nose didn't have a clue where the mage was, only having a hint that he's behind and above him. Stopping at the end of the corridor was a large room, the figure stopped inside the room and turned towards the corridor; sprouting out a cone of red flames from his mouth, a shadow; most likely a person, dropped from the ceiling and howled out in pain.<p>

Holding his clenched right hand up, the lime-green Peridot on the glove flashed brightly while the other gemstones dulled; he was very disappointed, very. A sinister green aura grew around him, slowly forming into the silhouette of a cobra – the dragon slayer could feel his power deprive his disappointment; he could hypothesize that this new power was driven by his emotions. Facing his palm towards the scorched opponent, green flames sprouted out and wrapped around to engulf the Eisenwald mage; the image similar to a large snake coiling around the smaller form of its prey. As the end of the flame downed itself to take over the shape of Kageyama's head, it was shaped similar to one of a snake's face; long fangs coming down its mouth, the fangs pierced the man's shoulders as the snake lunged its head to eat – starting from the head.

His scream was muffled by the large snake's head engulfed his face while blood oozed from his shoulders; Natsu raised his arms and another scream jumped from the other man's throat – the snake coiled harder and brought its head down, breaking the man's shoulders beyond repair. The red-haired dragon slayer could feel his contentment fuelling up with that uncomfortable yet familiar feeling; gaining that feeling always had him feel one other emotion he would never have by itself – joy. Laughing, his left pupil shifted into a bloodshot shade of scarlet; blue flames of hell sprouting from the red eye as his right glove had its gems change hue.

The spring-green Peridot immediately dulled, therefore being replaced with two gems on the same right glove as the Peridot; a blood-red Ruby flashed brighter than the slightly dimmer dark-blue Sapphire – both gems on either side of the now dull green gemstone. Natsu watched in glee as the green flames coiling around the trapped shadow-user changed into a shade of purple closest to red; he noticed the form of the snake mold into a shape of a large wildfire, burning the man alive as blood dribbled down his broken shoulders. Looking at the silent mage, the flame mage noted that his opponent has lost his voice – a pity indeed, his fun was ruined into silence.

Stopping his laughter, the flames from his eye deflated and disappeared into nonexistence as the same as his scarlet eye; the violet flames around the burning man changed into a bright baby-blue as soon as the ruby and sapphire on his right glove dulled almost instantly. The gemstone flashing brightly was an Aquamarine blue gem that glint on his left glove; he was bored – he couldn't hear the anguish the man cried and the begging for forgiveness; it simply shown in the burnt man's eyes.

Staring back into those eyes, he simply shot off the fire with a click of his fingers; and the Aquamarine returned to its normal dull state. Kageyama seemed to express joy through the perplexed yet pleased expression through those ugly dull onyx eyes. He can't have that expression, that hopefulness that clouded everyone's visions and that emotion that has left him from reality; from the real world. Stalking up to the laying burnt man that had blood pool around him, he brought his foot down. A scream echoed through the halls which would easily catch many's attentions, blood soaked through the bloody man's clothes – later splattering onto his clothes. A frown formed onto his lips.

Natsu was _disgusted_.

And he couldn't _forgive_ this man for…

Dirtying his clothes... His hate diminished and felt reality slap him; screaming that he was an _idiot _forged for bloodlust.

He could feel the stinging sensation on his cheek even in _reality_; it _was_ reality that slapped him after all.

Yes, he _was _insane alright. _Insane_ because-

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU FLAME IDIOT?!"

…_What?_

Looking up from his daze, he stared into the enraged pupils of his colleagues; furious. It was always that expression directed to him in most directions, he can't seem to feel anything for things anymore; he lost most of his emotions along the way and found himself confused on that particular common look. Looks always drove him _nearly _back to reality, he found himself always spitting down at those pointless things – emotions always gets in the ways of your plans and attributions, and relationships always finds another step into driving you to _their _side; he _absolutely cannot _follow them. The dragon slayer shot the other male colleague a sharp look; and the other always would flinch or look away in annoyance.

Flinch he did, and looked away in _fear._

Which did remind him of that look in the shadow mage's eyes.

Natsu always _did _wonder why so many people have such a weak and pointless emotion. Looks like some research is needed.

Sometimes he would find himself wake up in the locked library with many books opened, which shows how _hard_ he researched. He didn't bother with that McGarden bookworm.

Nevertheless, the red-haired knight beside the fear-stricken man sent her fist at the dragon slayer. Rolling his eyes, he quickly ripped off the shadow user's arm and used the hand as his form of catching the oncoming fist – he stopped the chuckle from escaping his lips at the immediately pale face that overtook her senses as she was being caught by a dead man's hand. Squirming her wrist from the grip, she skidded back with the look of instant fear in her eyes; Natsu wanted to congratulate her for losing her cool demeanour she always had at the guild through formal means. The three mages; Gray, Erza and Lucy, excluding the blue cat and dragon slayer stared at the bloody form of Kageyama.

"I-is he… d-dead…?"

The red-haired male simply rolled his eyes at the fear she displayed; her whimpering was one, he stuttering was another. She chocked through her sniffling and cried on Gray's shoulder, Natsu watched in disinterest and scoffed at her display of a simple dead man – he wanted to question her bravery, and her might of joining the guild of simply not being able to handle a dead man. Dead men are dead and can't do anything. Scoffing at the ridiculous pointless emotions, Natsu caught the attention of the other two human mages in the room.

Not aware of the returning enraged looks, the two mages calmed down and simply glared at the back of the mage – indeed, they did not know they were cowards for being able to show their anger at someone's back instead of admitting it in front of them. The dragon slayer walked past them and exited the building through the nearest door; he caught sight of the whimpering mage merged inside the wall though he never payed any attention to him. The blue-furred cat followed in suit through the door and perched onto his head. The three mages reluctantly followed, and were in the sight of a large wind wall rapidly spinning in a tornado around the station.

"How do we… go through this? That Kageyama guy is dead…"

All eyes turned to the red-haired dragon slayer expectantly. He ignored them and shot his hand into the wall, it cut his fingers brutally as he pulled it out without a moment's waste. Tapping his injured finger on his lip as he thought about several ways to go through the wall; the mages watched bewildered as he jumped into the wall and twisted himself in the direction where the wind rapidly goes. He seemed to travel upwards in the wall as the mages looked at the wall expecting to see a cut-up Natsu to end up seeing him jumping down from a height with no injuries present.

"That didn't work…"

The three mages looked at him wide-eyes.

"W-what did you do…?"

Apparently, they weren't comfortable asking him that question as he would always brush them off.

"I went with the flow of the wind."

They weren't expecting that; the blonde celestial mage told the other two that he would probably act different since it wasn't a leisure-like question. Brushing off their curiosity, Happy that still lay on Natsu's head popped up from his daze and looked like he remembered something. Sprouting wings from his back, he flew in front of Lucy.

"Don't you have a key to dig underground?"

"No…"

"..."

The blue feline turned to the thinking red-head who stopped from his thinking. The dragon slayer raised his arm as he stepped towards the wall and pure white flames sprouted from his palms; it looked to eat away the air. The three mages shot up from shock at the flames, but consumed in anger at the long-period of thought it took for Natsu to think of his power.

"Why didn't you think of this before?!"

"I simply had to list down all my magic."

"You can't have more than one magic, it's impossible!"

Natsu turned away, in no mood to talk – who would think having two types of magic was impossible. He continued to sprout white flames from his palm in silence, the three mages just tapped their foots in impatience.

Their _idiots_, the lot of them.

They simply don't _know_ him, which was why they exclaimed that.

Or they simply did it to annoy the _hell _out of him.

After all; _they will ignore you until they need you_. That is the _nature _of all living things.

* * *

><p><strong>Once again, sorry for the delay. I don't really have much to say except thank you for reading this 2 week late chapter!<strong>

**Bye! ;)  
>From Rai-tan, your fellow Fairy Tail readerauthor!**


	6. Chapter 5: Satisfying Strengths

**Hello~! Rai-tan here!**

**So... after three/four(?) weeks... I finally updated... I'm sorry. On the last four weeks before starting school (I just started yesterday), my family have been starting to go out of our house and doing random things; like going to the city, watching a movie, going to my cousin's houses, celebrating birthdays and the like. I didn't have time to continue typing like I had miserably done. So I deeply apologize to those who waited so long... ;(**

**So... school finally started, so time is going to be cut down to approximately 2-3 hours; so I'll make the most out of them! ^^ The most time being the whole days of Saturday and Sunday; so I'll spend those days typing, planning and maybe a head-start? Anyway, yesterday; I spent four hours straight researching and practising on how to write battle scenes - and I STILL fail miserably... at least I tried.**

**I got new glasses as well! :D  
>Who knows Tiffany &amp; co? Oh yes~! Such beautiful glasses! A good $750 was spent on it! ;_; My friends say they could've spent the money on a lifetime of Maccas and a pair of Beats. Oh well, my sight is getting worse; -4.5! My god, that was double the worsened vision I had last year! xD<strong>

**WORD CONTENT: **_5,012 words_

**So... DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN FAIRY TAIL**

* * *

><p><strong>Fairy Tail: Desolate Vitality<strong>

**Chapter 5**

**Satisfying Strengths**

* * *

><p><strong>Oshibana Station, X781<strong>

The wind walls died under the blazing white flames that licked off every visible part of the wall; it was a simple process, magic eating away other magic should be possessed by every mage – shouldn't it? Sighing, Natsu placed his withdrawn arms to his sides and stared at the clear skies; Happy stuck to him like a protective burr, snarling at the attempted responses from the other three mages nearby – he didn't mind though, it was pleasant for someone actually _sticking up _for him.

"Natsu…"

The soft response from the blue cat startled him out of his wake; he stared back at the nestled familiar on his shoulder in reply. His movement towards the corpse of Kageyama went unfortunate for him to be noticed as he gripped hold of the wooden three-eyed skull flute in his hand, the trio of mages shocked demeanour went barely unnoticed by him as he firmly placed the flute slightly sticking out of Happy's green sack. The cat on his shoulder jumped onto his bloody spiky mess of a hair.

"Let's get to Erigor."

A soft hum from the red-haired slayer shown agreement before the three other mages nearby could utter a single response. The blue familiar got his wings out and grabbed the back of the collar of his partner's vest before flying off with a large portion of magic eating away behind him, the dragon slayer noted to increase his familiar's magic container for a more resulting launch; not that he complained though. He watched amused as he saw the expressions on the trio he left behind; a mixture of betrayal and shock dissolved in a large batter of anger – he couldn't complain though, it was a fitting look on pathetic mages as themselves.

It wasn't long as two minutes before he reached the slowly-edging figure of Erigor; and to say he was mildly disappointed at the smugness air that surrounded the man as he left the Fairy Tail mages in the barrier, though the slayer can't say if Erigor would know about the attempt from himself to eat away the wall. Amused at the sight of the way the reaper pranced along the train tracks crossing over the ravine, the hysterical large jolt from the familiar broke the silver-haired reaper's prance to Clover town; a sinking feeling formed in his stomach as he spotted Happy's wings disappear from sight. The blue familiar, exhausted from the long distance needed to travel, fell as his grip on the flame mage immediately loosened.

Natsu surprised himself as he automatically, on instinct, shot a wave of fire at the silver-haired man. Said man jumped away in haste as the flames cut away the rail in which Erigor stopped on in ease; bemused the way the eyes from the reaper's sockets nearly jumped from its own station. Landing with a slight bend of his knees to cushion his landing, his left hand caught the slowly-falling figure of his blue familiar; which itself was cross-eyed with a vision of a tongue pointing out from his mouth. To put it simply, Happy implored himself into this vision before being knocked unconscious from his overuse of magic – which the dragon slayer found most amused by as the face was implied to resemble an animated unconscious face.

He was pleased at the effort the blue cat put into driving him here without having to let the dragon slayer filter off a large portion of magic to magically appear in close radius from Erigor. Placing the familiar down behind him, almost adoringly, before staring back at the still shell-shocked wind-user in front of him - part of the stare looking incredulously at the lack of a shirt his opponent possessed. Analysing the still-redeemed enemy, he shot forward taking the daze into his own advantage.

"_**Fire Dragon's… Sword Horn!"**_

Almost unenthusiastically, it showed through his lack of abnormal strength it normally held as the attack would have at least pierced a muscle in the man's stomach - Natsu grimaced at the thought of him being too merciful, it was simply too foolish of himself. Although the lack of strength was visible, the damage was shown through the blood that leaked from Erigor's lips and nose; said mage was glaring back in disfavour as he spat out a trickle of blood. The red-head only smiled bloodily innocent, the corners of his lips attempting to rise higher but was held down by the surprisingly large amount of force he had against bodily functions.

The wind mage was simply too ridiculous to be afraid of.

Said mage seemed to catch on the smile as he slightly flinched, although returned back to his ungodly glare – in which Natsu was heavily disappointed on and mildly disgraced as well. The red-haired mage couldn't admit this himself but Erigor looked ridiculous with a bruised body and blood slowly trickling from his face while his glare held no power underneath the visible weaknesses. Natsu made no movement to gain back the possession of the flute, but bothered himself not to as he started to play with the said reaper whose face morphed into anger.

He shot forward once more and raised a flamed fist at his opponent who dodged by lowering his head.

"Don't think you'll win against me!"

The dragon slayer raised an eye brow, while rolling to the side as Erigor brought down his scythe. He eyed the blade of the scythe, _'what good material – I should make my own scythe with that'_. While still lying down with his back to the ground; Natsu raised his open palm and shot violet-black flames in the form of a beam, he rolled forward as the attack hit its target and jumped with his foot aflame.

"_**Fire Dragon's Claw!"**_

The forced exclamation brought his flamed foot down as it struck the man on the crown of his head; said man groaned clutching his head as he jumped back away from the form of the dragon slayer. Erigor placed his wind armour around him, almost in fright as his actions looked quite too fast from reflexes to have done so. Natsu grinned mockingly, his two feet back on the ground; the far corner of his sight catching sight of his familiar all too close to the edge of the rail road, sighing in relief as the blue cat started to gain his own consciousness. Looking through his bangs that fell from its defiance of gravity, the sight blurred instantly as he choked in shock as a leg darted into his gut; red splashed his eyesight as a his opponent pressed his forehead.

Blown away, tumbling in the process; recovered as his body stopped jumping away. Gritting his teeth as he wiped away the blood that began to sting his eyes, looking in the distance; he spotted the lack of a figure and the wooden flute that once lay near the dazing cat. _'Coward.' _Rubbing his forehead that stung from the deep cut, he simply made the blood be absorbed into his hair, not that it was already blood-like already.

"IDIOT! YOU MADE HIM RUN AWAY!"

Not surprised to find the stolen carriage filled with more idiots dart in his direction, he simply raised a brow at the idiocy of them all – the carriage nearly has a pair of deflated wheels, part of a beam was broken that could not support the left side of the overhang and the centre of the overhang was destroyed. Natsu wondered if they could have chosen a more proper one.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?! NOW THE MASTERS ARE GOING TO GET KILLED!"

The carriage, not stopping to let him get on board kept speeding across the ravine and left him behind; though they stopped for a while to pick up the now-conscious Happy. The flame dragon slayer stared in the distance and started to walk towards Clover Town; not bothering to waste his own energy by either running or acceleration magic.

"Erigor probably doesn't know how to play a flute…"

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><p>Skidding across the grass, the Shinigami of the disbanded dark guild, Eisenwald flew into the centre of the forest with a large grin plastered on his face – despite the glowing bruises that formed around his body. Letting the last laugh escape his system, he let his lips hover against the mouth piece of the flute; blowing into the flute came out a hoarse voice - seemingly the sound of a voice in which blood has gurgled your systems and no voice was barely able to escape from your throat.<p>

Staggering back in revelation due to the fact that was the most horrifying sound he has ever heard, he pressed the mouth piece to his lips again and blew - the sound only heard was another gravelly-like voice that screeched out of the flute. Stopping the blowing, he blinked as he hasn't heard of people dropping to the ground due to the fact of hearing the hoarse sound - removing the flute from his lips, he stared at the flute questionably.

Then he proceeded to try again.

It didn't work after many rounds.

Erigor screamed in exasperation and proceeded to hover around the forest for a walk, hopefully trying to find the hall in where the masters had their meeting. He passed by the grass, inches away from the surface as his feet grazed the hunches of grass splattered underneath the tree overhangs - his thoughts on the unsuccessful attempts at making people die, ignoring the fact of his surrounding area.

He bumped into something. His thoughts immediately stopped as he took around his surroundings; a small church-like maroon building to his right stood a few feet away as he stared right into the stacked wooden crates he apparently bumped into. Frowning, he looked towards the building with slight curiosity; placing his feet onto the surface, he took a couple steps to the building while ignoring the fact of the loud noises escaping the door.

"What are you doing here? Erigor the Shinigami."

- _huh?_

His skin slightly crawled due to the fact of the slightly familiar voice; he turned towards the person who just caught his sudden appearance. On the wooden crates stood a short, yet proud, old man who the silver-haired young man took in the appearance as Fairy Tail's current master; Makarov. Turning his attention to the outfit of the short man, he let out a laugh as he stared at the ridiculous hat of the short guild-master; he received an angry look, which quickly changed into shock as Erigor spotted a trio of mages dart in his direction as they lashed out their magic.

_**"RE-QUIP!"**_

_**"ICE-MAKE…LANCE!"**_

_**"I open the gate of the Bull, I open thee – TAURUS!"**_

The eldest yet young scarlet-haired woman lashed out towards him as her armour changed into a black armour with long wings as a deemed flying addition, the sword in her hand morphing into a long black sword that puckered white from its tips; overall, she looked overly terrifying due to the dark expression on her face. The only male, somehow without his shirt pressed his hands together; left hand flat out while pressed on the palm with his right hand shaped into a fist – ice shaped as long flexible lances dashed into the Shinigami's direction as he stood frozen in place. The younger blonde woman held a well-crafted golden key in her hand of the outstretched right arm, as her chant ended; a pale golden glow showered over the key – later summoning a tall well-built bull that resembled the species of a cow, the only weapon it wields was a large sharp axe that glittered gold at its handles.

All Erigor could do was watch the attacks blast into him; the lance-shaped ice hitting him first that enveloped him in freezing stature, the axe-wielding-bull hit him next by cutting him in the stomach that immediately splattered out trickles of blood, lastly – the scarlet woman in a black wing-like armour grazed him in many directions as she slashed him in impossibly-fast actions. The silver-haired target screamed in pain as blood splattered all away from him in many directions as possible, dropping to the ground unconscious as an enlarged fist slammed into his face from Fairy Tail's third master.

"Good job brats; I would have liked it if you haven't made him all bloody though…"

The other masters of different guilds watched in amusement as the trio bowed all the way to their hips.

"Sorry master if it weren't to your expectations."

"That's quite alright – now… let's worry about this flute."

All eyes turned to the bloody wooden flute on the ground near the unconscious leader of Eisenwald; the three eyes on the skull glowing a purple-like light from them as seemed to seep of raw power. As their attention was fully on the small instrument, nobody noticed a new person join them in the shadows; watching through the gaps between the leaves - who was bored to the point of laying against the trunk, legs splayed with the length of the thick branch.

All of a sudden, the mouth of the skull opened revealing the same indigo glow as the trio of eyes.

**"WHO DARES WAKE THE GREAT LULLABY?!"**

Everyone, not including the person in the background, jerked back due to the hallow-gravelly sound of the voice that escaped the end of the flute. A violet light escaped every hole of the flute, soon encasing itself inside the glow – almost immediately; the flute was replaced by the large figure of the demon residing in the flute. A loud roar escaped the through of the wooden demon, a screech so loud that many people around blocked their ears from the horrible sound – as soon as the screech stopped, the demon looked down at all the miniature-like humans through its indigo pupils.

**"Whose soul shall I eat first…?"**

It examined the figures of every person standing, a white glow from every person through its eyes – the glow being the soul encased under the human flesh of every person. The demon lost interest of the white glows, as those souls would yet fill its hunger; that was when the wooden demon spotted a midnight-black glow from the shadows in the trees – a ghastly hollow black that was not completely black but not completely white, a mix of both leaning towards the black. The demon Lullaby could not help himself but shoot an indigo-coloured beam to see the soul that was somehow not normal; he looked at the figure that jumped out of the trees, but was disappointed that the appearance of the figure was humanoid.

"Natsu…?"

The soft hum of recognition from Happy made the red-haired dragon slayer look up from the destruction behind him; he took around the situation around him with quick-assessing eyes. He spotted the owner of the attack directed towards him; which was a wooden demon with many loopholes and imprints that was similar to one of a tree – that somehow struck a small chuckle from the red-haired man. All in front of him were masters of different guilds that were standing in front of a church-like building, a trio of mages and a blue familiar were standing before the demon with some fear addressing their auras.

Staring at the large form of the demon Lullaby, he shifted his eyes towards the unconscious form of Erigor and the scythe that lay there untouched beside the silver-haired man. Spotting the plentiful amount eyes sported on his form, Natsu decided against his theft on the weapon and instead darted in the demon's direction; once again having the eyes stuck onto his back as they stared in their own small cycle of shock. The guild masters stared in confusion as the proclaimed 'most-evil-mage-in-Fairy Tail' partially flew towards the demon in mild amusement; the elders somewhat debating in their minds on whether to trust this situation to the young powerful man or to stop him from causing more destruction.

The flame dragon slayer fell forward as he neared the demon, immediately placing his hands to the ground before he hit the ground and used his arms in a piston motion to push him towards the Lullaby with feet aflame directed towards the large opponent - the attack landed with extra flames as the red visible heat sprouted around the opponent's chest downwards all the way towards the hips. Said opponent hissed in pain as the flames ate away parts of its body while spreading to eat those around the increasing holes; it glared at the human that landed back onto its feet - an amused gleam in his eyes as he stared at the soon-to-be-burnt carcass of the wooden demon, which was certainly highly flammable.

**"YOU DARE ATTACK ME YOU PEST! I'VE DECIDED - I SHALL EAT YOU FIRST!"**

The demon had his reply in the form of a small smirk from said first target; the small human jumped towards the demon as soon as its mouth opened in action to suck away the soul from said bloody-haired target, first eating away the peculiar flames that stuck to its body like magnets meeting their other end. What surprised the demon as he sucked at the red-haired human also surprised the watching audience still debating on their actions; a black evil-like aura formed above the dragon slayer that shaped into a form that seemed like it were being sucked though clinging onto the body while holding its ground quite easily. The shape was somewhat human with a pair of dragon-like wings and a pair of long horns planted on its head; with all eyes stuck to the strange shape, Natsu had a slightly pained expression on his face that shown all through his gritting his teeth - few people were able to notice the familiarity with Natsu had with his own peculiar soul.

_"You piece of shit... you dare try to steal my soul..."_

**"I... I just attempted did cannibalism! What are you-?"**

The flame-haired male shot forward with well-hidden anger that only portrayed through the magic compressing hard against the much inferior magic of the seemingly-poorly-expressed comrades; a fist pounded hard with intent as the area around the two powerful opponents formed a robust shock wave in which flew most people off their feet into the respecting directions outside the battlefield. The audience watching in deep shock as the aura radiating from the said dragon slayer was packed with extreme power; those in which rivals those powerful as guild masters - the watching audience would therefore debate whether to accept this power as a true power exempting from the young man who stepped back from the demon who staggered in a motion before falling down.

It fell onto the already broken debris of the meeting hall.

Everyone blinked at the destruction that lay before them before the Lullaby fell, wondering what happened to the innocent building beforehand.

Natsu used this chance before they realised that the destruction was mostly his fault to grab the scythe from the previously fallen acting-Shinigami. He bolted away.

The remaining members realised the crumbling was due to the shock wave from the dragon slayer's punch; they turned their eyes to the spot in which previously stood the bloody-haired man and found he was nowhere in sight - the guild masters minus Fairy Tail's master came to the conclusion due to the fact that the powerful member was from Fairy Tail and therefore the legal guild Fairy Tail should earn the blame. Grabbing and retrieving their staves and the lightest debris, they turned towards the remaining persons in the area with a killing intent.

"GET THEM!"

Makarov Dreyar, Erza Scarlet, Gray Fullbuster, Lucy Heartfilia and Happy jumped in their places, then proceeded to run away from the enraged debris-throwing guild masters while dodging the seemingly random stuff thrown. They knew just who to blame their situation for;

_Natsu Dragneel._

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><p>Upon the next day, the Fairy Tail members found themselves back at Magnolia in a heap of pain from the previous day's cramp of running many miles, though they were happy that they were able to help bring the illegal guild down; especially one blonde mage as she lay down on her bed for several minutes, before being interrupted.<p>

"Yo Lucy! Nice place you have here!"

"Gray-?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE NAKED!? DON'T STRIP IN MY HOUSE!"

A kick in the guts sent him across the room; he grunted in response and rubbed the back of his head in exasperation – it wasn't every day that you would have a kick that was so powerful. The shirtless mage sat up again while glaring at her; though it was partly his fault for busting into her room, she really has to control her anger issues.

"Haven't you heard? Erza just challenged Natsu to a duel."

"Huh?!"

The ice mage left the house and left the blonde mage to recollect her thoughts on the floor. _'Erza against Natsu…?' _Lucy bolted out of her room and towards the Fairy Tail guild, luckily she bought her apartment close by as it took only a couple minutes to reach her intentioned destination. She stared around her and found the two said fighting mages right outside the guild with a gathering crowd forming a circle around the deemed battlefield; the blonde pushed her way through and was finally able to see the two mages; the attractive male and the beautiful female – both red-heads.

Staring at their outfits, the blonde stared at the female's outfit; plate armour with a familiar Heart Kruez symbol across her chest plate, a long-sleeved white shirt hung underneath the armour and was visible at her arms, a simple blue knee-length skirt hung from her hips while her feet adorned black knee-length heel boots. _Simple outfit_, Lucy thought as she switched towards the male. He wore a somewhat form-fitting black shirt which clung to his body very tightly; red, silver and gold was decorated at the rim of his shirt in the shape of fire and dragons. He wore forest-green puffy sweatpants that ended between his calf and knee with a golden ribbon, a loose silvery belt hung from his right side that had a mark of a blood-red fire in its centre; he also wore a pair of tight-fitting black boots that ended right underneath the golden ribbon. Around his neck hung a high red collar sat upright, it led downwards all the way towards his feet in the form of a plain red cape; if you were to look closely, you are able to see a silver necklace with a similarly-coloured flame hung from its centre silver string. Overall, Lucy noted that he looked like the one with better battle-clothing rather than the armour-loving girl he was about to fight.

"Oh! Lucy, you're here! Come and bet on someone!"

"N-no! I don't want both of them to fight!"

The crowd sighed at her plain ways of seeing normal limelight; she was boring on _not _wanting to see this unpredictable yet predictable battle between the two Fairy Tail members. When the blonde mage turned her head towards the board, she noticed that it was a betting board with the two names; on the right side was _'Natsu' _while the other was _'Erza'_, both sides had many bets, though it seemed that Erza has more bets than Natsu – which Lucy thought as ironic because they weren't able to see the power the male displayed the day before.

When the master raised his arm; the scarlet-haired woman changed her armour into another which was a dragon-like red, black and gold armour, she held a flaming sword that somehow had a magical feel about it though Lucy couldn't place what – her hair was tied into two pony-tails, which was somewhat random yet fitting. The other participant placed his hand on the newly-appeared completely crystal-blue rapier; the blonde pondered on its magical abilities as it glowed a faint ice-blue light from its tip as soon as he placed his hands onto it.

"Ready? START!"

Everyone surrounding stilled at the sudden proclamation as the female participant dashed towards her opponent with sword poised into her hand, its flamed tip pointed forward as in meaning to literally stab the other; the male countered by grabbing the sword with his bare hands, therefore cutting his palm which are ravenously bleeding that which have stained the knight's sword with his life. Before Erza could know that her attack stopped, Natsu kicked her in her stomach area which she in result flew into the quick-moving crowd and him in thus time bolted in her way with his gem-like rapier glowing with all its might at his side.

The scarlet-haired woman quickly picked herself up and rolled out of the way and fortunately came out with only the blade cutting off a bit of her long red hair; she found herself surprised as her opponent didn't let his dash into waste as he twisted his waist when he landed and pivoted on his right leg in the fastest motion possible before he bolted towards her direction. The woman in battle blocked his rapier with her own sword, and used the chance to push with effort for at least a little stumble - she let her sword morph into a water-based sword and slashed across his chest.

Her opponent's eyes widened by a fraction as the clothing ripped slightly from the cut and revealed scars splattered across his chest through the rips; Erza stopped her second oncoming attack and lowered her sword due to the damage clearly shown what was done before the battle she herself declared - Natsu narrowed his eyes as he recognized the look as a possibility of pity, though he deemed it as only a seemingly odd calculating look and used the distraction as a means of his counter attack.

_**"Hell's Flame!"**_

A bloody-red fire bloomed out of his palms as he darted towards her, the flame slowly travelling up the flame user's body until he was completely covered - the distance he bolted in was simply so short and quick that the female receiver snapped out of her thoughts and brought up her water-based sword as his fist zoomed to her face. A small hissing came from the sword as steam formed from her sword; the small mist rising from the sword made the flame mage smile somehow so wickedly that put a dark look over his eyes.

Erza stared in shock as the sword she held simply gargled and melted in her hands in the short span of two seconds that seemed to pass as a fist came in contact with her abdomen, she watched her vision become spotted with dark spots as her head impacted onto the floor that created a crater around her due to the force behind that punch. Groaning, she stood up from the crater with a weak body and was met with a brutal knee into her face - therefore earning a crack from her nose that indicated the result of a broken nose.

The woman skidded back from the motion and clutched her bleeding nose, she looked up from the ground and met the soulless eyes of the opponent in front of her; she could only wince at the cold stare. Due to her beaten-up state, she swallowed her pride and finally filled her sight with pitch-black as she collapsed to the ground with barely any strength holding her legs. Natsu stared at her fallen form before he left the fight with a disappointed gaze that soon turned sullen - was she that weak that she couldn't be much of a fight for him?

As the winner left the area, the audience muttered to each other about the fight - which quickly became yelling and shouting that shown its chaos. They silenced as the master of the guild Fairy Tail yelled for quietness; he raised hid right arm, and his voice ended all confusions.

"The winner of this fight goes to... Natsu Dragneel!"

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><p><strong>So... end of chapter 5... what do you think? xD<strong>

**I'm sorry that the update took so long - I'll try to KEEP my promise and get the next chapter updated next week! :p**

**So far... I'm trying to play 'Flower Dance' on the piano with both hands - I'm up to 40 seconds into the song. :D Wish me luck. ^^**

**Thank you to those who waited very patiently - I'll thank you!**

**Sincerely from,  
>your authorreader, Rai-tan. :)**


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